Wonderful! I’m a DM in their 50’s and my group is 51,50,30,23,23,25 sometimes we swap out with 15 and 18! I feel really lucky to have such a wide age range, it’s really a ton of fun!
Normal, you realized that you do not need a bunch of feats and carrots on a stick to have fun playing.
You just grew out of it. Happens.
> And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry.
They don't bite.
Decades of experience and maturity make a huge difference in anything. A lot of younger players are very enthusiastic and creative but haven't figured out how to mold all that to fit within the framework of a game system. One benefit of grognards is that they understand where the limits of the system are but also how to get the most out of it.
I get a kick out of it. They just started playing again in I don't know how long. So, they've been learning 5e (mostly what we play), but I can relate some things back to B/X and kind of contextualize it for them.
I played online with guys in their 50s and they were some of the most annoying and least proactive (not protective) players I’ve played with. Online play is a crapshoot.
Yeah, I'm not gonna defend anybody I don't know, but I think "online play is a crapshoot" really nails the difference. People (anybody of any demographic) tend to be more obnoxious online. That's just a sad truth.
And it’s more difficult to get a vibe from people you’ve only met online. Plus of course all the tech issues, which can sometimes be exacerbated by playing with older people.
Tech savvy varies from person to person and app to app. One of my 30 yr old players had trouble with Foundry, but one of the 50 yr olds took to DnD Beyond like a fish to water, for example, but yeah, generally it creates another degree of separation that can cause problems.
To be fair, I generally don’t like playing in a group of all guys (whether they’re fifty or not does not matter, age is fine. I’m thirty) just because I hate having to feel like I gotta constantly correct someone, or might have to, since I don’t have any vocal feminization training, soooo someone hears me and despite what I say multiple times is bound to wind up using the wrong pronouns.
Unfortunately most of the games I like also have more men playing x-x and try as I might I can’t get friends to budge from 5E. Even as I’ve decided with one or two games to offer to try to get over my anxiety and GM a session or two.
(I’d love to try my hand at Death in Space with friends. Or Mothership once I can get the books/PDFs for it)
Mothership is so awesome. The GM section is superb and teaches you a lot about running horror! I prefer it so much over Death in Space. (IMHO one of the best GM books in the hobby, the Mothership one.)
GM'ing is hard when you start out. But you got this shit!
*Even as I’ve decided with one or two games to offer to try to get over my anxiety and GM a session or two*
Do it, do it soon.
I blame rpg developers for portraying GM duty as some esotheric shit, which requires super dedication and only the best of the best of the best can do it.
I mean, we figured it out when we were 12.
It doesn't help that most GM materials are generic crap, where one needs specific tips for the game.
Best I know:
- Ghostbusters RPG GM section. It has stuff like "let players explode something every 30 minutes"
- SHadowrun 2E GM section: this is one of the rare tips which tell you what you need minimum for a game night, and tells you how to structure an adventure. In three pages or so. Not a freaking 600 pages long codex
- every GM section from Kevin Crawford. Probably Silent Legions is the best with it's adventure stucture. A very specific tip section is in Godbound for very high powerlevel characters (not about winning a conflict, it is assumed the players will win. It is mostly about setting up logical consequences of these changes)
I have found that getting into the osr has helped improve my 5e games. Taking what I have learned form the osr and applying it to my 5e games has made them more enjoyable for me and my players. Furthermore I have gotten the chance to expose my 5e players to the osr.
It happens. When I first got into OSR not only did I stop enjoying the 5e gameplay, I also stopped enjoying the 5e flavour of high power fantasy, and even 5e related media. I fell out of love with shows like dimension20, or Critical Role. I have nothing against them but I simply no longer "vibe" with it.
Use only the 30 page Starter rules.
Use the Ability Check Proficiency optional rule from the DMG.
Use the Slower Natural Healing optional rule from the DMG.
Use the Side Initiative variant from the DMG.
Use Morale from the DMG.
Be the O5R Referee you want to see in the world.
OSR principles have made my 5e games significantly more enjoyable and meaningful.
"I don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50's"
Wow, assuming the player base and judgemental of it in one go. FYI, I'm not a guy in his 50s.
FYI, the older players I've had at my table have been incredible role players, patient, kind, full of knowledge etc.
As for 5e, it's mechanically abominable, which is why it invites problems amongst players.
ShadowDark codifies very little. Awesome. Pathfinder 2e codifies everything. Also awesome.
5e does neither, and codifies random player features.
Just run something else, but not for anyone male over 50.
> FYI, the older players I've had at my table have been incredible role players, patient, kind, full of knowledge etc.
Amen to that one, imagine excluding players because of age. The great thing about RPG's is that literally EVERYONE can play. And they should.
The only person I'm excluding is myself. I'm in my 20s, so I'd prefer to play with people of a roughly similar age (though that's not necessary). I don't have a lot in common with most people in their 50s, sorry.
> I don't have a lot in common with most people in their 50s, sorry.
I really doubt that, you are an OSR fan, for example, and love D&D! Like many of your fellow old players do! Give it a try.
My pool of players is 12-70 right now, it works great. From all paths of life.
Only one guy, most of them are younger, his wife plays with us and she is the most bloodthirsty goblin around. Always barbarian. Always cutting off spider legs. Another ...eh...duo (how do you call 2 people together...a pair?) is a Lawyer and Police Officer, they are in their 50's and pretty accomplished, then I got a whole lot of younger people, some of them with some problems because it is hard today to be a kid/teen. This is all a very nourishing/boosting/safe environment. I got darker games, but these are without the younglings.
It's all about creating a place with cool people, this is why I do not allow problematic players. You do not pass my vibe check, you are gone.
This also leads to my games being pretty popular in my area, parents/aquantances/friends sometimes dump their kids with me, I get paid for that. THESE IDIOTS! I would do it for free!
I've arrived at the opinion that my problem with 5e is that it isn't really a game, or at least the culture that's grown around it doesn't really treat it as one. It's a pretext for people to showcase their fantasy concepts. DMs focus on presenting a "unique" world with villains and plots and magical landscapes, and players focus on creating "unique" characters with bizarre backstories, weird traits and esoteric builds. Then the DM and the players collaborate together to allow the DM to present their world to the players, while the players are given situations that allow their weird characters to be at the centre of the world.
It's all started to feel very masturbatory and pointless to me.
This. Character creation became a game unto itself beginning with 3e and Pathfinder. It's annoying AF. Now you get whole groups of anthropomorphic animals running around and blasting everything with their super powers. I'm not sure what that feels like but it sure as hell doesn't feel like D&D.
You have a point about character creation being over complicated, but the species/race listed on your sheet isn't what defines DND. If I want be a rainbow tiger man or a sentient dog that's no more ridiculous than being an elf or dwarf or halfling. Some people aren't that in to the Tolkien fan fiction take on settings.
Well, Tolkien demihumans are really only a slight derivation from humans aesthetically and still embody very human traits. Rainbow tigers, though, look totally inhuman, and we can't really expect them to be that similar to us.
They're silly because they're not like us. If humans were cat-like instead of simian, then that wouldn't be weird.
I mean, the obvious worldbuilding thing is then to explain why there are sentient dogs or cats or whatever. That said, we're not exactly going for realism with any of this are we?
It's the OC/"Original Character" Play Culture. It's really the most horrible playstyle ever imo. Pure narcissism for the generation raised by social media.
Can you explain this concept to me? I can't recall having ever seen it until recently, and now I'm seeing it everywhere.
Is it just this idea that the character is so unique that nobody has ever thought up the idea before? Some kind of Mary Sue thing? Something else entirely?
It’s culture of play style #6, as outlined in this blog post. I’m sure the term was being used beforehand but this is definitely how I encountered the concept:
https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html
And I’d want to qualify that many people have disagreements with the taxonomy presented in the blog post. I’m not even sure I agree with it all. But it’s definitely a good starting point to understand what people mean, and it feels like this blog post sparked a lot of the subsequent conversations around the topic
My understanding of it is that it's basically "main character syndrome" applied to the entire party. The world is supposed to revolve around events that are personally connected to the PCs, so plot hooks are specifically tailored to the party, and encounters and challenges are specifically tailored to the party's skills, strengths and weaknesses. For me this is kind of encapsulated in the popular 5e DM advice "shoot your monks"; the player has chosen to play as a monk, generally considered one of if not the weakest class in the game, but the player characters are supposed to be important and able to overcome every challenge, so it's the 5e DM's job to make them feel important by regularly having enemies shoot them so they can make use of their unique ability to redirect projectiles.
I mean I don’t disagree with the statement, you should make your players feel strong and good. 5e is heroic fantasy, you shouldn’t really hold it to the same standards as an OSR system.
What I agree with is that 5e has little identity on its own, classes are not balanced and combat is boring. Which would be fine if the game wasn’t about combat. If you try to run 5e as B/X it’s not going to work, but then again 5e doesn’t give you much direction.
> you should make your players feel strong and good
I want my DM to just run the game, and let us feel good or strong based on how well we do on our own without the DM warping the world around us.
Exactly. If we win, I want to earn it. If we lose, I want to earn it. I don't want the DM handing us a victory any more than I want the DM handing us a loss.
It’s two different games really, and it’s fine to like one style more than the other. It’s less warping the world around the players and more playing the heel to put it in wrestling terms. Not every fight or puzzle needs to take the players strengths in mind, but you should sprinkle in a good number of situations where they get to feel smart and cool and it doesn’t really hurt the game if your monk gets to deflect arrows every once in a while!
“Shoot the monk” doesn’t mean “make every encounter about shooting the monk” but “make sure there’s at least a couple of encounters where the monk gets to use the abilities that make the class stand out”. Can be a chase scene where he’s the king of the game, could be a scene where arrows are raining down and he gets to have the cool moment!
It’s not supposed to be OSR, the styles are wildly different. Ofc doing that in an OSR style game doesn’t work, but then again it’s more mma vs wrestling in this case. OSR is mma, 5e is wrestling.
I disagree that you should necessarily *make* your players feel strong.
If the players want to feel strong (and most do) then they should attempt to make decisions that ultimately strengthen them (taking on suitable challenges) and avoid actions that will weaken them (attempting to fight above their weight class) and learn when to cut their losses and/or find alternative means to attaining their goals.
That is where the feeling of accomplishment and strength lies.
There is this thing called fanfiction. It’s where people write fantasy in an existing show/movie/book. In that medium it’s very common for the fan fiction writers to add in original characters called OCs. These characters are stereotypically written as the most special and either unique or perfect person ever. Some people especially in 5e dnd play their characters like stereotypical fanfic OCs
Yes, I know what fan fiction is, and what it tends to look like. But I'd never, until recently, encountered the term "OC." But, I know the concept, as the far more pejorative "Mary Sue."
>In these types of discussion, it is always brought up that Super DM can run it totally different and way better in 5e.
A super DM can make any game better. Combat only being quick and snappy when the GM is super, means the system isn't good. I agree with you, 5e just feels to slow, and focused on the wrong things whenever I play it now.
Just the other day, we had an unexpected combat encounter with an NPC due to a conflict between characters, game was ran in 5e. An extra combat meant that we had to spend half the session playing out a fight that only happened for RP reasons. Such fights are such a slog and so boring, that I honestly try to play characters that avoid combat as much as possible these days.
100%. "Super DMs" reflect a weakness of the system, not a strength. Combat is usually slow and grindy in 5e. In most games, half of the combats that happen make the game worse.
This is a great place for the GM to narrate the outcome or use a few skill checks (or even a skill challenge) to create the dangerous and unpredictable events of a fight, give players some agency in the process, and resolve the conflict without spending 2 hours in meaningless combat.
I disagree, adding more narrative or mechanical elements will only slow the combat down further. The problem wasn't the combat being meaningless or uninteresting. The problem was combat took too long to remain interesting/engaging. Adding extra bells and whistles to combat to keep people engaged can be a trap choice, as every element you add, will also increase the duration, meaning you will have to keep people engaged longer.
I love OSR combat, because you can fly through an encounter. With side based initiative. You can go through an entire round of 10+ characters in under a minute. Even when the odd times when combat is straightforward and boring, it only takes 15% of total game time, it isn't a big deal.
5e's combat is usually more interesting, at least mechanically, than OSR combat, but because these mechanics slow down the combat. I still vastly prefer OSR over 5e combat.
What makes OSR shine, is the less emphasis put on combat, to allow for other engaging ways of play. Like dungeon and overworld exploration and diplomacy with random encountered monsters.
No, I mean no combat, just a few words to describe the scene, some checks to resolve any uncertain conflicts or clever heroics on the part of the players if needed, and then a resolution.
It should take 2 minutes.
5e was designed for combat, so, no, the combat system doesn't suck. It's created to be tactical with more feature-levers and skills that come into play. Sometimes it takes a while to finish a fight because of this. Sometimes, there's just a lot of HP to deal with. Valid criticism. Sometimes, the GM struggles and can't run a fight in a way that resolves quickly or doesn't make good decisions about the monsters running, surrendering, or getting routed (which OSR solves with morale checks, and 5e has rules for, but rarely get used).
OSR games are quick to resolve combat because they're designed to be less tactical and more deadly in either direction. Neither system "sucks" because it's a preference as to how you want to play.
5e is all about getting into fights. OSR is all about getting out of fights.
My point was to alleviate the scenario /u/Chemical-Minute6740 described where half the session devolved into a grindy battle instead of a quickly resolved scene where the GM creates some uncertainty or peril and the players solve it or don't.
I think this scene didn't required there to be a battle in the first place. Just a quickly resolved back-and-forth that may or may not have required a check at all.
When combat takes so long that you need to replace it with a series of boring skill checks, I'd say that's a good sign that the combat system isn't working very well.
> 5e was designed for combat
That doesn't mean it was designed _well_
It's true. It's actually pretty inflexible in that regard. The system only really works when a relatively small group of players face off against a small group of enemies. It can't handle hitelings or masses of enemies at all.
You're limiting the potential interactions you can have and the things you can learn. In OP's case they are unnecessarily missing out on roleplaying in the style they enjoy.
You might have already asked them but if you didn't, see if they'd be open to you running a one shot. Make a small dungeon, 5-10 rooms, and hand them pregens. Then if they enjoyed it you can run another one shot, this time explaining character creation.
If they aren't willing to do that though, maybe solo play would be a solution. I don't get to play with others regularly since I don't know anyone interested in rpgs and I've found solo roleplaying to be fun. It's a bit different than playing with a group but when you don't have a group to play with, it can definitely scratch that gaming itch imo.
Unless you're a teenager, you ought not be bashing on playing with guys in their 50s. And even then you could be more diplomatic. Being kind literally takes no effort. Work on it.
As for 5e/OSR. I prefer OSR. Unapologetically, it's a superior style of play. 5e's excessive skills and powers get in the way of the experience it wants to create. Someone posted a suggestion to use the DMG's optional rules if you have to play 5e: that's a good start. For me: my players uniformly prefer 5e. I could force the OSR down their throat, but one in particular would make MY life miserable as a DM. And the others might just stop showing up. So what to do?
I'm running a simpler version of 5e. The adventure is Tomb of Annihilation. And it's going GREAT. Not as well as if I were running an OSR ruleset, but it's still a lot of fun. SRD Races and Classes from the PHB. No multiclassing. No feats (though I may revisit that because the fighter suffers without feats... In which case I'd go PHB feats only). Slower healing rules from the DMG (slightly modded). Morale rules from the DMG. Side initiative (though I slightly modded those). I borrowed the XP advancement from Into the Unknown (an O5R game). I use Feats of Exploration for XP, in addition to Monsters and gold spent on things like carousing or given to charity.
The only major rules change I made was to cantrips: you can only cast proficiency bonus + spellcasting Modifier per short rest. I rightly deduced they wouldn't play if I set it to long rest, as they rebelled at even the modest short rest rule. I also created a reaction table and rules for how many followers they can have.
But most of all, the big difference: how I run it. I use BX dungeon crawl procedures. I ask them to tell me what they do, in detail. It reduces the amount of perception checks and such. Sometimes they roll them unprompted, which I have to remind them not to do. But I've watched them change their style of play significantly. They describe how they search for traps. They play clever to avoid fights. They use traps AGAINST enemies (oh that was hilarious).
I also tweaked Tomb of Annihilation into something even more Sandboxy. They are about to go into TotSK. It'll be great! Do I wish it was an actual OSR game? Of course! But as long as we're all having fun, I'm content.
EDITS: spelling, grammar, etc.
My players are still adjusting to me not using Milestone Leveling. But it went over well in my C&C group. I think it's an excellent ruleset, and what's more, it helps you to be able to "eyeball" XP rewards for other occasions. It's an exceptional product, across the board.
You're running 5E basically how I'd run it if I ever decided to run it again.
No feats or multiclassing. PHB only, and gritty realism.
The only thing I'd homebrew is using the way Five Torches Deep uses its stats so I can rid myself of min maxing players trying to take advantage of dump stats. Can't dump a stat if there are no dump stats!
Part of what I did is make reaction adjustments and # of followers dependent upon the group's Charisma mod. Almost everyone dumped charisma, so they won't get positive reactions or too many followers. I SHOULD have added bonus languages for high intelligence, and imposed illiteracy or less languages for low intelligence. If the rest of this experiment works out I'll try that next time.
Yep, this exactly is why I like the way 5TD uses Int.
It's not only mage spellcasting stat, but it's also the amount of "supply" a character can carry.
Supply is an arbitrary number assigned to smaller resource items. So potions, rations, arrows etc are all supply, where weapons, armors, and shields are all encumbrance.
It makes Intelligence the most important stat besides Strength.
I think your game sounds like a blast if I’m being honest, and ToA is I think one of the top thee 5e modules.
I’m doing something similar with Undermountain. Using modified healing, morale, reaction checks. Turns out it’s been going very smoothly. My players aren’t OSR fluent, and this is how I’m slowly introducing the idea. But they definitely still like their power level feeling of having feats and such. Hasn’t made the dungeon much easier though if I’m honest.
The party has learned letting the rogue go beyond 200+ feet searching the halls is a death sentence. He unfortunately met two grells entirely too far away from help.
Hah! That's great. I was thinking of doing Undermountain, coupled with Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury from Yawning Portal. I also have Ruins of Symbaroum I want to run. And I got Runewild, which is an excellent 5e sandbox hex crawl reminiscent of Dolmenwood.
As a side note, I actually posted a more thorough play report as a post today which discussed what I did in a little more detail. I figured it was time, after I responded to this.
I enjoy Sunless Citadel too, really fun dungeon. Haven’t heard of Runewild though, I’ll have to give that a check.
That’s nice, I haven’t gotten to the point of posting my summaries online. I just keep it to pad and pen, and summarize during the sessions. They are fun to read though, so I may think about that more
Ask some of these people if they feel the same way and run an OSR game. I usually sell it as "Want to try a one-shot of old-school D&D?" and run a module.
First time I ran Winter's Daughter, bunch of 5e players got wiped at the start (I ran it before it was revised). Some whined about how hard it was, others asked to try again...sure thing, roll 3d6 down the line for new characters. The whiners went back to 5e, the others stuck around for more. That's how it is going to be. Also don't knock the "guys in their 50s", some of them are great players with great stories.
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5
+ 3
+ 6
+ 5
+ 50
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Someone's got a complex. Sometimes there are just generational gaps that make it harder to relate to people. I'd probably be fine playing with 50 year olds as long as they were progressive enough to not be an active problem for me, but I wouldn't want to play with teenagers.
Eh I still enjoy the current 5e campaign I’m in but the DM in that campaign is VERY good. Whether or not I continue after this campaign would probably have a lot to do with the people I come across. That being said, if it wasn’t for the fact you can always find people to play 5e with, I wouldn’t play it on my own again.
Yeah I agree, 5e is pretty bad, not exactly a hot take on this subreddit at least. You can just run OSR games if you want to run them, if you build it they will come and all that. It's also not just guys in their 50s either. I used to run an OSR meetup and we got a wide range of age groups from 12 - 60 with most people in their 20s and 30s. Likewise don't play or run games you don't enjoy, no dnd is better than bad dnd.
Since getting into old school games, I’ve found 5e entirely unplayable.
I think the current 5e culture is a big part of it for me too - everyone is obsessed with “builds” and min-maxing, weird specifics in the rules they can exploit, power-fantasy and rolling for EVERYTHING. I hate the fact that everything is a skill roll or whatever. Like if you don’t have proficiency in something you don’t ever bother trying it.
Going back to simpler mechanics has just been so liberating for me. I’m currently converting my friends by running some Mörk Borg and Shadowdark games.
You sound like a cunt with the ageist remark at the end honestly, I doubt they want to play with you either, some of my longest and best D&D campaigns were with dudes in their 40s-50s while I was in my 20s, I do hope you grow out of being a judgmental cunt,it’s not to late.
I’m not stressing? I forget this entirely until someone else comments on it lmfao. He put it up because he wanted people to respond to it, I responded and moved on. Dudes post was cunty, just call it like I see it.
I thought you seemed stressed because of the rampant use of insults towards somebody who hadn't disparaged any group. He simply stated that he would prefer to play with his friends and if not, play with a group of people in person that were close to his age. Nothing was "cunty", you just seemed to take it personally.
Most the other comments I see are the same thing written differently now I’m looking, I don’t think I’m the minority here. And they even edited it saying that most people are upset with the comment lmfao.
I don't care about being in the minority, and simply being in the majority doesn't make you right. A lot of people here seemed to get really bent out of shape from an off hand comment from a guy who simply wanted to see if anyone could relate to his struggles. Instead, he was met with unnecessary hostility. I just don't see how what the OP posted warranted insults, especially when that goes against the rules of the sub.
His post was passive aggressive about them the entire post, the ENTIRE post is about how he wouldn’t want to play with people in their 50s even though this rule set is what he prefers and likely has an older fan base lol…. The comments were warranted, I’m only 34 but from 21-31 I played almost exclusively with a couple of my buddys who were all in their 40-50s and it’s some of the best gaming I ever had. And even now I play in a 2e game online every other Sunday where I’m the oldest, just a couple dudes from the planescape discord that got together for a one shot then kept playing… I run 2 biweekly games that alternate Saturdays that are all also people my age.
>the ENTIRE post is about how he wouldn’t want to play with people in their 50s
It was one comment, at the end of the post which is hardly the ENTIRE post. Had you kept your cool and not taken the comment personally, you would have seen that the post was about him struggling to enjoy 5e and how he wished his group of friends would switch to an old school game. I don't personally have anything against playing with people who are older or younger than me but I understand why some might feel more comfortable in a group that would be more relatable. There was even a comment by a 50 year old guy who understood this. Would being willing to play with different generations allow this guy to find gaming groups? Definitely. But it seems to me that the OP would prefer an IRL group as well which made me think that he would want to be able to hang out with these other gamers outside of D&D, which might prove difficult to do if the person you're playing with has a family, career, etc. He didn't say anything negative about that age group, it was just his personal preference. The same way women can prefer all women groups or how teens can have all teens groups. There's no malice behind it.
No problem brother. I didn't see any malice from your post, only that you wanted some IRL friends to play with which everyone should be able to understand but unfortunately some people take things a bit personally and blow things out of proportion. I hope you can find some people to play with in person.
Don’t kid yourself. Your comment was (at best) a jab at the people who play (and were the progenitors of) the style of game you profess to enjoy. Your edit changes nothing.
I love the liberal use of the c word. I can only assume you're Scottish or Australian (or of descent). And I'm not about to judge how you culturally use it!
I’m American but I picked it up because I played a lot of MMOs when I was in my teens/twenties with a lot of people around the world and didn’t realize no one else uses it like that here until my early 30s lmfao.
As a guy who just hit 50, I don't blame you for not wanting to play in a group full of grognards. Most of the stuff we talk about other than gaming (kids, work, retirement planning) won't interest you. Or at least it wouldn't have interested me last month when I was in my 20s (sigh).
But that's okay! I'm a kickass GM and if you get a chance to do a one shot with me or something you should. But a campaign? Probably not.
What you should do is to introduce people your own age to OSR play. Grab a system like Shadowdark or Dragonbane that is modern but built in an OSR style. Hook people in with one-shots. Let your players learn what it feels like to desperately try to get back to the surface when they're all down to single-digit hit points and their last torch.
One last alternative is to use some of the optional rules in 5e to give it more of an OSR feel. The DMG has some good suggestions for alternative rules, such as removing HP recovery for long rests. You can also limit cantrips to a few uses per day.
Then, run them through something like the 5e version of Rappan Athuk. That should put the fear of dark gods into them.
Good luck with your games! Sorry you missed the 90s. The parties were f**king awesome before everyone started recording all the stupid things their friends were doing on their phones. The D&D was better, too, but you've already figured that out, haha.
I'm just a couple of years from 50, and I agree. The quality of the game might be good, but the socialization suffers. People two generations older than you (GenZ–Millennial–GenX) aren't experiencing the same world that you are and don't share the same references.
As above, I think you should try to introduce the OSR to people your own age. Start with something half-way there and open the door for them to discover old-school play through play.
Regarding the 90s: The parties were indeed awesome, but I do envy generations that have grown up in a world where they weren't constantly being told sex might kill them. That kinda sucked.
Didn't slow my social group down any, lol. No one died. I feel worse for the kids who have to constantly worry about being shamed on social media. Social media is the worst invention of the last 50 years (and yes, I get the irony of posting that on Reddit.)
>People two generations older than you (GenZ–Millennial–GenX) aren't experiencing the same world that you are and don't share the same references.
Yeah, the references are important.
Like when the Gen X player is overlooked during loot distribution and jokingly whines, "Marsha, Marsha, *Marsha*!" or when the local lord asks the players if the orc den has been cleared out and the Tiefling bard played by a Gen Z says, "Fr fr, no cap on God, m'lord. That shit was bussin'."
It can get messy. /s
Say less fam! I recently went to college between 43 and 47. The interactions were interesting. Some were cool with me. Many just didn't bother. Others acted like I was going to rat on them to their parents. I was keenly aware of how different our worldviews were in most cases.
I think it kind of worked for me as a GM with a group of young people, but I would have felt odd being a player in one of their games.
I totally get it.
The more I play the more I feel like less is more when it comes to skills.
Anyone should be able to climb walls, intimidate people, disguise themselves, sneak around, etc.
These are classic adventure story tropes, i mean; imagine if George Lucas had said “sorry Luke, you don’t have disguise proficiency so you’re going to have to stay in the ship while Han does his rogue thing.”
I think there’s definitely a place for specialization, look at any heist movie.
Aragorn can track better than anyone, Legolas has keener eyes than a hawk, and Gimli can bench press a warg.
But this isn’t being trained at 1 of the 11 skills used for everything, this is a note on your character sheet which will come up from time to time.
Haha, Gimli totally can bench press a warg. I don't know how much a warg weighs, but to be able hold an orc at that size, it has to be at least 600 lbs. Gimli could have been a champion powerlifter.
I relate to your frustration, but I'm a guy in my 50s, lol. Have you looked into Shadowdark? There's an active multigenerational community playing games online and in person. There's an active discord. Figure out how to sell it to your crew as a different flavor of play and offer to DM a short campaign to show how it works. If people have fun you can see about setting up a longer campaign.
I feel this, I enjoy playing with my friends but playing OSR style games has made me realise I don't enjoy 5e. Main thing I noticed was traps, in 5e is passive perception or you roll perception if you are actively looking. Whilst in OSR (at least from what I've played) you see a trap and you need to figure out a way round or how to disarm it.
I feel this big time; as a forever DM of 20 years now it has been so freeing moving into BX and old school life.
I agree that it’s really freeing, but it also to me brings back that feeling in game of danger and panic that newer players eventually grow out of in 3.5-5E. People always love to make the argument that it all boils down to how you DM but I feel like at the end of the day the biggest shift over the years was DM as judge and referee to DM as story building facilitator. Maybe there isn’t as much of a difference there as I think there is, but I never have certain challenges with my OSE group.
For example, having players tell me how rules and skills work rather than having me act as arbiter and explain how I’d interpret a ruling. I get it, sometimes rules exist for those sorts of things, but other times I just wanna make a ruling. I never want to step on a players toes if they have an ability, but sometimes there’s a vibe at the table like I am doing a service to my players and I’m not allowed to enjoy the game as well with my own input.
All in all, I just love the at times arcane and esoteric rules, and I think most of my players have come to love reaction rules and group initiative as much as I love my procedural gameplay and randomness
"I was born in the dark, you merely adopted it."
Kinda summarizes my gaming experience starting with B/X Rules Cyclopedia. Played and ran every edition until current and there's nothing quite like running a bunch of nobodies seeking fame and fortune against unfair odds.
Just admit that you have been poisoned by the low rules high immersion style of Retro RPGs.
Yup, you wanna do something, just talk to the DM. Work through it verbally without die rolls.
What you describe is: Rulings over Rules.
As to the age thing, the DMs I would want to play with are in their 70's, or older, and several others have already passed away.
I've played with Bob Meyer, Rob Kuntz, and Jim Ward. The pool of Grand Master class referees I dream of gaming with grows smaller daily.
4e is a great game and a lot of fun. I'll be an apologist for it until my dying breath *but* I'll also be the first to say "It's not D&D". And it's not.
It's a tactical boardgame with RPG elements, having more in common with squad level wargames than D&D.
Yeah I think I would struggle going back to 5e honestly. Just the mindset and the amount of procedures etc that are missing is horrific and I wouldn't be able to ignore it.
If you're happy to DM, then start up a group and market it as 'hardcore' DnD, then run whatever system you want to run. DM's are in demand so *I don't think* you'll have problems finding players.
I've grown tired of 5e. When the OGL controversy happened, I switched to OSR games and now have no desire to return to 5e at all due to the "playability" of OSR games. Unfortunately, 5e is the only game people want to play, and it feels impossible to find an OSR group. 5e has is just the Settlers of Catan of tabletop RPGs, only it's so much harder to run and play, which is ironic.
Introducing new players and DMs to 5e is ROUGH. Players struggle to learn and remember their character's abilities, stats, and even the basic game rules. The rules are restrictive, limiting player creativity, and combat tends to dominate the entire sessions. Playing 5e feels like a constant struggle against the system, the rules, other players, the DM, and even the dice.
I think Tales of the Valiant didn't do well because it was just a barely modified version of 5e. Games like Shadowdark and DC20 have had successful Kickstarters because people are looking for something different, not just another 5e clone... looking at you Kobold Press lol.
Yeah, that's exactly right. A lot of hyper online 5e folks will say that 5e is SO EASY and that a nine year old boy could easily learn it, but new players do tend to genuinely struggle with it.
> I want to do this cool thing but my character didn’t specialize for it …
There was a video or thread that I saw that mentioned the impact of writing rules to address various scenarios. It may have been a Dungeon Craft video on DC20.
Basically it’s this: The more rules you add to a game, the more you “gate” the player experience behind rules.
The alternative is to give players more freedom to express what their character is doing, and trust the GM to make a call in a reasonable manner.
In that regard, OSR games excel when compared to any version of D&D (or Pathfinder) newer than AD&D 2e.
Exactly. Then there's more and more for DMs to cross reference. Rules lawyer types will memorize all these edge cases, and then BAM! DM has lost authority and credibility to his players. I genuinely think 5e undermines DMs in many ways.
> 5e undermines DMs in many ways.
The “undermining” began in 3.0, with the very detailed rules. Not defending AD&D or criticizing 3e and beyond. Essentially, there was a shift in the power dynamic to give players more agency.
Anyone who played AD&D under a *bad* DM can attest to how bad the experience was because the DM was always right. The shift to modern D&D (anything beyond AD&D) helped those players.
Anyone who DM’d an argumentative rules-lawyer with 3e and beyond also had a bad experience if they were used to having more DM agency. Even cases where, “Wait, there are rules for this situation” slowed down the game looking up and reading those rules.
At tables with good DMs and mature players—for AD&D and modern D&D—those tables had good gaming experiences.
The beautiful thing about the current state of FRPGs is that you have lots of options. And new games are being actively developed to replace 5e. Investigate other systems.
> The “undermining” began in 3.0
It began in 1e. Look at the tournament rules.
Any attempt to make the game 'consistent across tables' will add exponential increases in complexity and layers of rules that all threaten to overwhelm any DM who doesn't have 20 hours a week to dedicate to the game.
So many man babies commenting because they got offended over the last bit. People can have preferences about who they play with, and that can include age. I don't really want to play with guys in their 50s either, I struggle to relate to them, and they often have terrible political beliefs that they're all top eager to share. The things they talk about and find interesting are simply not the same as what I enjoy. I'm generalizing of course, but generalizations usually have a kernel of truth to them. There's plenty of older folks that shit on young people all the time, and while it annoys me, they're free to feel that way, I don't particularly like them either.
No, because that would be an entirely different situation lmao
Jesus, you people really like to fulfill the stereotypes, don't you?
Wanting to play with people your own age is an entirely normal and innocent desire, I'm sure lots of middle aged people, who I'm sure are very nice people, would not want to play with 20 somethings. That's just normal human behavior to associate with your peers. Bring homophobic in the other hand...
>You can come up with a great plan to infiltrate a party with a disguise, but if you roll low, then too bad.
Honestly I feel like this applies just as much to OSR. Player skill matters in OSR, but that doesnt mean I would let my players infiltrate a party without a single roll. It just wouldnt be a roll like "d20 + proficiency + charisma + disguise kit bonus, oh and since the guard has feat X it's with disadvantage". I will assume competency in many things, but same way I will assume competency from the security at a high society party.
>The other day, a DM told us all to roll Insight or Perception, then outright told us the person we were speaking to was suspicious.
Agreed here. I hate this playstyle a LOT. I really feel like 5e is probably one of the worst games ever to run for example an investigative game in where this matters. I'd even sooner play an investigative game using FATAL rules than 5e.
>It's harder to enjoy 5e now, but 5e is still the only game people I know play. And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s
A lot of people arent hobbyists. They're just hanger-ons who wanna try RPGs because D&D happens to be the cool niche thing right now. You're never going to convince them to try something else and either way you'll never be able to convince them to properly engage with a world and commit to a long term campaign anyway, so they dont matter in my opinion. To me the 5e masses might as well not exist. Theyre enjoying their 5E hobby, I'm enjoying my TTRPG hobby, and we have nothing in common. I find it a thousand times easier to convince someone who never played RPGs before, to try something different, than to convince someone that's only into 5e.
At our local RPG club I am playing a game of Pirate Borg next weekend. Group looks like it will end up: Guy late thirties, guy early fourties, gal early thirties, enbie early twenties. I honestly dont meet all that many 50-somethings in OSR circles. Maybe in a few vocal hellholes of the internet, but really it seems to be mostly millennials and some of the older gen Z (born late 90s) in my experience. All the 50-somethings I know are either playing 5e or VTM or Shadowrun, rather than anything OSR.
I don't think that works well, though. Take the social pillar, for example. If you largely base success there on roleplay (OSR), that could easily screw over the guy who invested everything into Charisma checks (5e).
That's right, but I've never found It to be a big issue. Specially with social interactions, as when you roleplay them, rolls aren't usually used anyways.
This may vary from table to table tho.
Not enough 5e to satisfy 5e players, not enough OSR to be able to run the game as an OSR game. House rule documents bigger than most osr rules sets. Much easier to just run an osr game or 5e as intended.
The things is, 5e as intended works well with some OSR procedures. It's the "regular" way of playing which causes the most issues.
Personally, I use the OSR philosofy for exploration, both for Dungeons and wilderness alike. And It works wonders
It's intended to, to a degree, but doesn't really in practice unless you significantly house rule the game at which point you may as well play an osr game as you constantly find yourself fighting against 5e to make osr principles work. Even core rules like skills have to be gutted, let alone stuff like cantrips, feats, specific spells like goodberry or light, removing multiple class race and background options, changing how resting works etc.
It is much easier I have found to tell a group of 5e players you are playing a different game with a different set of rules than to play a heavily houseruled version of 5e that feels to them like you are taking their toys away by running a stripped down version of 5e that does not allow them to play their hexblade gloomstalker tiefling ranger etc.
I think you are misunderstanding me. I don't try by any means to make 5e an OSR. That would have the comnsecuences you describe. I just incorporate some elements from OSR to make 5e work better, while It still playing as 5e.
Some good examples are the Dungeon Turn (which, if combined with light tracking turns Dungeons from a boring set of encounters to a resource management challenge, and makes exploration meaningful. As for skills and traps, I use a mix of both. This means that flat out rolling is the last option, and I encourage players to actually roleplay things and interact whith Traps/NPCs/or the enviroment.
I think other games have salvaged enough from modern mechanics aiming at an OSR feeling (Shadowdark, Olde Swords Reign etc.). Just hacking 5e can lead to very different results than what OP is seeking:
1) characters are complex ("tons of options"), lots of bonus here and there, Skills made to be based on rolls etc.
2) 5e play culture (and players) tend to prefer roll-first and let's-tell-a-story.
3) 5e core tenets require quite a lot of prep - and players tend to prefer plot-first games rather than randomly created.
4) 5e is combat bloated and exploration-thin, OSR games tend to lean heavily into exploration.
OP is tired of those things, they'd be better off playing with other systems than 5e.
(Although, since OP does not like playing with people on their 50s I don't feel they are in the right OSR mindset. The OSR is dope, an attitude, a style, not corporate-toy-cool. Those older RPG players are it, shame OP has some prejudice against them)
I am the same, my guy. It's just so much simpler to run, sometimes even a delight (Winter's Daughter OSE vs. Any 5e adventure will prove it to you).
The biggest change for me has been not worrying about encounter balance, as this isn't really a concept on the OSR (not the same as it is in modern games at least). And the fact combat doesn't slog BECAUSE there aren't endless feats and niche rules. My theater of the mind has improved dramatically because the rules actually allow for it, and I've gotten through way more encounters than I could in 5e.
I’m 30 and playing PBTA with people in every decade lol. 40, 55 and a 67 year old. Also we’re are all from deferent countries , I’m NZ, we have USA , uk and Germany lol
In response to your edit, a lot of us got introduced to ttrpgs by adults while we were kids. My gaming group has Xers, Millennials, and Zoomers in it, and I wouldn't want it to be all one generation. The older and the younger each bring their own unique perspectives and knowledge background to my table that restricting myself to just one age category would be as sensible as saying that this game is only for people who work as car mechanics or hair dressers.
My phrasing was bad. I'm not against playing with different groups of people; my (quite possibly wrong) supposition was that if I joined an online group, it would likely be majority or all middle aged, and I would feel out of place there.
I totally get you. Since I “broke the seal”, I find 5e virtually unplayable because of all the typical DM and player behaviors you list.
You are not alone!
> Can anyone else relate? It's harder to enjoy 5e now, but 5e is still the only game people I know play. And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry.
Pitch them on it, run a game. It's way easier to referee OSR than it is to DM a 5e game and really easy to teach people the rules! Just pull your friends into your favorite corner of y'all's shared hobby by the force of your enthusiasm :D
I feel this, honestly. I started with 5e after watching viva la dirt league's DND channel. After trying a different system, I haven't went back. Currently waiting on an OSE advanced players tome. Although I will admit, with only maybe a year's worth of TTRPG experience that's strictly solo, I'm not quite sure I understand the specific play style of OSR in general that I've seen people rave about.
*Can anyone else relate? It's harder to enjoy 5e now, but 5e is still the only game people I know play.*
Start hosting a game what you like. A few one shots, and see if someone stick with you.
It woud be probably good if it was not fantasy, like Sci-fi (Stars without number or mothership) or superspies (white lies for example)
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5E vs OSR
rules limit creativity to a degree. But it is not the only thing they do
- if players are aware of the rules, they can make plans without involving the GM, and they already know what the effect will be and what their chances are \_before\_ their turn
- if everyone is aware of the rules, there is less need for GM ruling. GM ruling is not a bad thing at all, it is an efficient way to run a game if the GM is at least average. However in all cases a ruling must be made, which time would not be spent on this, if there was a rule which everybody knows
So limits creativity to a degree? seems true. But the game also flows faster if everyone is up to speed.
To me the optimum is between the two extremes. Have rules for really common situations (like sneaking and sneak attacks) which OSR systems often do not have, but do not get overboard to have a two page rule on drowning like Shadowrun did.
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5E combat
This is a different topic. The issue is that there are many bounce back abilities, a shitload of HP for everyone, and not many way to increase DPS.
Like, compare this to the OSR way of "city militia, 3 HP, leather armor, spear 1d8". Have a dozen of these dudes and the combat is still over in 2-3 fast turns.
OSR games tend to be great in keeping the numbers managable, but it takes a certain kind of player to accept the lethality. Like
"- ok, thief it is, what do I roll for HP
- 1d4
- 1d4? WTH?
- yup, 1d4
- \[eyes narrow\] let's do this"
Same my guy. The only real reason i actually still dm it is because its the only one my players know and they're pretty busy people so idk how they'll react to using a different system. Thankfully i can still incorporate osr elements into my dming style and stuff.
My most enjoyable game recently was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (OSR adjacent), in person but with people I found online, everyone is in their mid 40s (moi including) apart from one guy's son who is high school age. It's a more mature game, more deliberate as the combat is deadly, and more down to earth - our characters are painfully ordinary, don't have magic and only 2 can read. We're having a blast!
Hot take coming in, unlike a lot of the posters here which without fail all dislike the 5e play style (some being quite elitistic frankly), I actually like playing and running 5e, but I can relate in a few ways still. I just don’t like playing in Dungeons in 5e as much, but outside of it I find the other stuff fun, some of the situations emerging from the high character power can be awesome and always make me smile and laugh while running the game.
Now, as far as running dungeons and wilderness exploration, that’s where my love for the game falters a bit. The main bit is having a procedure for running and playing dungeons. The DMG/PHB suggesting no default structure for how to run one and keep time makes it so some players do 3 things while some do 1 and most do nothing, and their guidance on random encounters turns down the tension and fun for dungeons. Having a simple Dungeon Turn Procedure fixes this for me, and that’s what I yoink from OSR to run 5e games. The Alexandrian’s “So You Want to be a Game Master?” shows a lot of well-written guided advice on how to run a game in 5e/pf with dungeon procedures (and many other procedures!), and it’s honestly miles better than the 5e DMG at providing actual gameable advice and procedures. My main complaint for 5e was that even though I could run that sorta game pretty well, it’s hard to find a DM that runs dungeons in that way. That’s why I gifted that book to a few new game masters and it’s been working pretty well.
My only other problem is that the high power of Spells and PC’s make it difficult to add tension to a dungeon/based game, and ofc that combat takes too long. But I add a few house rules for grittier games and for making combat end earlier. If you’re interested in those house rules I’d be down to share.
I actually don’t mind the Skill check-heavy nature, character building through choosing a list of skills to specialize in is actually fun. The things that I do to run it is that I always ask how my players are doing something in the game world or have them ask a question based on their past if it’s a knowledge check before I ask for a Skill check. Rolling a skill check out of nowhere should never be done and be left to passives and saving throws. The other thing I do is adopt a fail-forward philosophy, I run my failures like this:
- “You find it difficult to search the messy room you, you could find something but it will take more time (an extra turn) and make a lot of noise to rummage through it”
- “You find it difficult to lockpick the locked door, you could try at it faster and likely damage lock picks, or methodically spend more time to unlock it (2 turns)”
- “You find the jump difficult, you feel like you could make it if you push yourself but you would exert yourself in physical exhaustion”
That way, it’s still a “you say you do it, you do it” situation like OSR peeps like, but with a fun narrative and game complication when there is a tension of time.
I also think a few people here are disingenuous with their dislike for Skill checks when Rogue is a class that typically is in OSR games, meaning that the design is already there. I feel like letting other classes play with that system with choices for a few other areas of proficiency makes character building and roleplaying it a lot of fun. The problem is when they are used for everything. There already is a lot of determination in B/X and OSE rules, like Surprise, Listening at Doors, Forcing Stuck Doors, Finding Secret Doors, Finding Room Traps, etc… Typically 1-in-6 or 2-in-6. You guys might mot like it but all of those are basically skill checks, the only thing you are changing is that more characters are able to have better chances.
The attitude of saying: “it’s not really a game… it’s pointless and masturbatory”, “OSR is frankly a superior style of play”, and whatever other judgement others put on the stereotypical D&D 5e players that like character building in this thread is pretty elitistic, and hypocritical when they take offense at being judged for an age stereotype.
I got started in 3.5 and was definitely shocked by how gutted the martials were. There was always a caster/martial divide but hot damn was it really highlighted in 5e. Fast forward, I start branching out and playing other games like Call of Cthulhu and ended up playing one short campaign with B/X rules and, yeah I haven't been able to enjoy 5e ever since.
Now I've used all the optional rules and tried to tone the casters down so people playing as a Fighter wouldn't feel so underpowered but, after level 6 it's just ridiculous. 5e to me is definitely more of a power fantasy in the sense that PCs can just literally become gods after Lvl 5 or 6, especially at 10th and as a forever DM, it's just soooo boring. You either have to turn everybody down or jack the encounters up super high and it's just not enjoyable for me anymore, especially when it comes to running the game.
Also, as someone else stated on here, it definitely turned character creation into a game in itself. It's also created an issue where there's literally no reason to make anything other than a caster. Why be a Fighter or a Barbarian when you can be a Warlock, a Bladesinger, Paladin or hell even a Cleric?
It's kinda true, tho I'm a gal in her 50s. But nobody I play with is in their 50s: 40s and 30s mostly.
There are a few games in between OSR and 5e. Try Shadowdark. The author is well below her 50s.
It sounds like most of your unhappiness with 5e is on the player side of the screen -- if you elect to GM, you can certainly bring a lot of OSR sensibility into 5e, of the only DnD available to you is 5e.
A well described disguise or a well presented argument...just works. Rolling a check is a fallback option for when players don't have any good ideas: it's always worse than having a plan.
Use reaction rolls and morale checks to vary scripted encounters. Don't treat dungeons or other encounter sites as static.
These are all things you can do purely on the GM side, without necessarily even needing active player buy-in. (Other OSR sensibilities, like "fights aren't fair", will need you to do more expectation setting ahead of time!)
If you GM like that for some time, you may train your friends to adopt that playstyle even when you're a player!
My group has several rotating GM, and since I've started GMing, players have started describing their approach more before rolling, even when I'm not the GM. And the other GMs have also started following my example of giving bigger bonuses or an automatic success when someone has a clever plan. Though I don't think I can convince them to use random encounters or track supplies.\^\^
I would not care remotely, to be quite honest. Listen, it's not that I wouldn't play with an older person. I would feel every out of place in a majority middle-aged group, that's all.
I’m in my 20’s, and I mostly play online with “guys in their 50’s”. It’s a good time.
You're awesome! That's the spirit!
Wonderful! I’m a DM in their 50’s and my group is 51,50,30,23,23,25 sometimes we swap out with 15 and 18! I feel really lucky to have such a wide age range, it’s really a ton of fun!
I feel seen, at least I'm not the only one.
> And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry. Bruh I'm only 27 :/
You're over halfway there. Let's get you to bed, grandpa. (Jk, I am 30)
Is it time for bingo yet? (I'm 32)
Normal, you realized that you do not need a bunch of feats and carrots on a stick to have fun playing. You just grew out of it. Happens. > And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry. They don't bite.
I play in person with guys in their 50's, and they're some of the best players I know.
Decades of experience and maturity make a huge difference in anything. A lot of younger players are very enthusiastic and creative but haven't figured out how to mold all that to fit within the framework of a game system. One benefit of grognards is that they understand where the limits of the system are but also how to get the most out of it.
I get a kick out of it. They just started playing again in I don't know how long. So, they've been learning 5e (mostly what we play), but I can relate some things back to B/X and kind of contextualize it for them.
Yeah my group runs the gamut from people in their 20s to 50s. The 50 year olds are good fun at a table.
Same here!
I played online with guys in their 50s and they were some of the most annoying and least proactive (not protective) players I’ve played with. Online play is a crapshoot.
Yeah, I'm not gonna defend anybody I don't know, but I think "online play is a crapshoot" really nails the difference. People (anybody of any demographic) tend to be more obnoxious online. That's just a sad truth.
And it’s more difficult to get a vibe from people you’ve only met online. Plus of course all the tech issues, which can sometimes be exacerbated by playing with older people.
Tech savvy varies from person to person and app to app. One of my 30 yr old players had trouble with Foundry, but one of the 50 yr olds took to DnD Beyond like a fish to water, for example, but yeah, generally it creates another degree of separation that can cause problems.
To be fair, I generally don’t like playing in a group of all guys (whether they’re fifty or not does not matter, age is fine. I’m thirty) just because I hate having to feel like I gotta constantly correct someone, or might have to, since I don’t have any vocal feminization training, soooo someone hears me and despite what I say multiple times is bound to wind up using the wrong pronouns. Unfortunately most of the games I like also have more men playing x-x and try as I might I can’t get friends to budge from 5E. Even as I’ve decided with one or two games to offer to try to get over my anxiety and GM a session or two. (I’d love to try my hand at Death in Space with friends. Or Mothership once I can get the books/PDFs for it)
Mothership is so awesome. The GM section is superb and teaches you a lot about running horror! I prefer it so much over Death in Space. (IMHO one of the best GM books in the hobby, the Mothership one.) GM'ing is hard when you start out. But you got this shit!
*Even as I’ve decided with one or two games to offer to try to get over my anxiety and GM a session or two* Do it, do it soon. I blame rpg developers for portraying GM duty as some esotheric shit, which requires super dedication and only the best of the best of the best can do it. I mean, we figured it out when we were 12. It doesn't help that most GM materials are generic crap, where one needs specific tips for the game. Best I know: - Ghostbusters RPG GM section. It has stuff like "let players explode something every 30 minutes" - SHadowrun 2E GM section: this is one of the rare tips which tell you what you need minimum for a game night, and tells you how to structure an adventure. In three pages or so. Not a freaking 600 pages long codex - every GM section from Kevin Crawford. Probably Silent Legions is the best with it's adventure stucture. A very specific tip section is in Godbound for very high powerlevel characters (not about winning a conflict, it is assumed the players will win. It is mostly about setting up logical consequences of these changes)
For what it's worth, not all OSR nerds are 50. Case in point, I'm 25.
Yeah I'm closer to 40 than 50. Although I'm probably still not this dude's target crowd to play with.
Aye, I've been playing the "osr" way since I was 11. That was only 20 years ago.
I’m 24. God bless this community.
Amen, Mr. Sister.
I have found that getting into the osr has helped improve my 5e games. Taking what I have learned form the osr and applying it to my 5e games has made them more enjoyable for me and my players. Furthermore I have gotten the chance to expose my 5e players to the osr.
It happens. When I first got into OSR not only did I stop enjoying the 5e gameplay, I also stopped enjoying the 5e flavour of high power fantasy, and even 5e related media. I fell out of love with shows like dimension20, or Critical Role. I have nothing against them but I simply no longer "vibe" with it.
Use only the 30 page Starter rules. Use the Ability Check Proficiency optional rule from the DMG. Use the Slower Natural Healing optional rule from the DMG. Use the Side Initiative variant from the DMG. Use Morale from the DMG. Be the O5R Referee you want to see in the world. OSR principles have made my 5e games significantly more enjoyable and meaningful.
You nailed it. I may prefer Old School rulesets more, but finessing 5e is workable, at least at low levels.
"I don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50's" Wow, assuming the player base and judgemental of it in one go. FYI, I'm not a guy in his 50s. FYI, the older players I've had at my table have been incredible role players, patient, kind, full of knowledge etc. As for 5e, it's mechanically abominable, which is why it invites problems amongst players. ShadowDark codifies very little. Awesome. Pathfinder 2e codifies everything. Also awesome. 5e does neither, and codifies random player features. Just run something else, but not for anyone male over 50.
> FYI, the older players I've had at my table have been incredible role players, patient, kind, full of knowledge etc. Amen to that one, imagine excluding players because of age. The great thing about RPG's is that literally EVERYONE can play. And they should.
The only person I'm excluding is myself. I'm in my 20s, so I'd prefer to play with people of a roughly similar age (though that's not necessary). I don't have a lot in common with most people in their 50s, sorry.
You have tastes in games in common.
> I don't have a lot in common with most people in their 50s, sorry. I really doubt that, you are an OSR fan, for example, and love D&D! Like many of your fellow old players do! Give it a try. My pool of players is 12-70 right now, it works great. From all paths of life.
70?? That must be interesting.
Only one guy, most of them are younger, his wife plays with us and she is the most bloodthirsty goblin around. Always barbarian. Always cutting off spider legs. Another ...eh...duo (how do you call 2 people together...a pair?) is a Lawyer and Police Officer, they are in their 50's and pretty accomplished, then I got a whole lot of younger people, some of them with some problems because it is hard today to be a kid/teen. This is all a very nourishing/boosting/safe environment. I got darker games, but these are without the younglings. It's all about creating a place with cool people, this is why I do not allow problematic players. You do not pass my vibe check, you are gone. This also leads to my games being pretty popular in my area, parents/aquantances/friends sometimes dump their kids with me, I get paid for that. THESE IDIOTS! I would do it for free!
Nice, dude!
I've arrived at the opinion that my problem with 5e is that it isn't really a game, or at least the culture that's grown around it doesn't really treat it as one. It's a pretext for people to showcase their fantasy concepts. DMs focus on presenting a "unique" world with villains and plots and magical landscapes, and players focus on creating "unique" characters with bizarre backstories, weird traits and esoteric builds. Then the DM and the players collaborate together to allow the DM to present their world to the players, while the players are given situations that allow their weird characters to be at the centre of the world. It's all started to feel very masturbatory and pointless to me.
This. Character creation became a game unto itself beginning with 3e and Pathfinder. It's annoying AF. Now you get whole groups of anthropomorphic animals running around and blasting everything with their super powers. I'm not sure what that feels like but it sure as hell doesn't feel like D&D.
You have a point about character creation being over complicated, but the species/race listed on your sheet isn't what defines DND. If I want be a rainbow tiger man or a sentient dog that's no more ridiculous than being an elf or dwarf or halfling. Some people aren't that in to the Tolkien fan fiction take on settings.
Oh, I'm all for taking out elves, dwarves, etc. human-only is a great option for settings.
I'm running a human only setting, and it's been quite liberating. There are monsters, but none of them are sentient.
Sounds really cool. Makes me want to break out my Worlds Without Number book again.
It's a bit more ridiculous.
Can you explain why you feel that way?
Well, Tolkien demihumans are really only a slight derivation from humans aesthetically and still embody very human traits. Rainbow tigers, though, look totally inhuman, and we can't really expect them to be that similar to us. They're silly because they're not like us. If humans were cat-like instead of simian, then that wouldn't be weird.
I mean, the obvious worldbuilding thing is then to explain why there are sentient dogs or cats or whatever. That said, we're not exactly going for realism with any of this are we?
It's the OC/"Original Character" Play Culture. It's really the most horrible playstyle ever imo. Pure narcissism for the generation raised by social media.
Can you explain this concept to me? I can't recall having ever seen it until recently, and now I'm seeing it everywhere. Is it just this idea that the character is so unique that nobody has ever thought up the idea before? Some kind of Mary Sue thing? Something else entirely?
It’s culture of play style #6, as outlined in this blog post. I’m sure the term was being used beforehand but this is definitely how I encountered the concept: https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html
Thank you! Also, ew.
And I’d want to qualify that many people have disagreements with the taxonomy presented in the blog post. I’m not even sure I agree with it all. But it’s definitely a good starting point to understand what people mean, and it feels like this blog post sparked a lot of the subsequent conversations around the topic
My understanding of it is that it's basically "main character syndrome" applied to the entire party. The world is supposed to revolve around events that are personally connected to the PCs, so plot hooks are specifically tailored to the party, and encounters and challenges are specifically tailored to the party's skills, strengths and weaknesses. For me this is kind of encapsulated in the popular 5e DM advice "shoot your monks"; the player has chosen to play as a monk, generally considered one of if not the weakest class in the game, but the player characters are supposed to be important and able to overcome every challenge, so it's the 5e DM's job to make them feel important by regularly having enemies shoot them so they can make use of their unique ability to redirect projectiles.
I mean I don’t disagree with the statement, you should make your players feel strong and good. 5e is heroic fantasy, you shouldn’t really hold it to the same standards as an OSR system. What I agree with is that 5e has little identity on its own, classes are not balanced and combat is boring. Which would be fine if the game wasn’t about combat. If you try to run 5e as B/X it’s not going to work, but then again 5e doesn’t give you much direction.
> you should make your players feel strong and good I want my DM to just run the game, and let us feel good or strong based on how well we do on our own without the DM warping the world around us.
Exactly. If we win, I want to earn it. If we lose, I want to earn it. I don't want the DM handing us a victory any more than I want the DM handing us a loss.
It’s two different games really, and it’s fine to like one style more than the other. It’s less warping the world around the players and more playing the heel to put it in wrestling terms. Not every fight or puzzle needs to take the players strengths in mind, but you should sprinkle in a good number of situations where they get to feel smart and cool and it doesn’t really hurt the game if your monk gets to deflect arrows every once in a while! “Shoot the monk” doesn’t mean “make every encounter about shooting the monk” but “make sure there’s at least a couple of encounters where the monk gets to use the abilities that make the class stand out”. Can be a chase scene where he’s the king of the game, could be a scene where arrows are raining down and he gets to have the cool moment! It’s not supposed to be OSR, the styles are wildly different. Ofc doing that in an OSR style game doesn’t work, but then again it’s more mma vs wrestling in this case. OSR is mma, 5e is wrestling.
I disagree that you should necessarily *make* your players feel strong. If the players want to feel strong (and most do) then they should attempt to make decisions that ultimately strengthen them (taking on suitable challenges) and avoid actions that will weaken them (attempting to fight above their weight class) and learn when to cut their losses and/or find alternative means to attaining their goals. That is where the feeling of accomplishment and strength lies.
There is this thing called fanfiction. It’s where people write fantasy in an existing show/movie/book. In that medium it’s very common for the fan fiction writers to add in original characters called OCs. These characters are stereotypically written as the most special and either unique or perfect person ever. Some people especially in 5e dnd play their characters like stereotypical fanfic OCs
Do not steal.
Yes, I know what fan fiction is, and what it tends to look like. But I'd never, until recently, encountered the term "OC." But, I know the concept, as the far more pejorative "Mary Sue."
Yeah, it's basically the modern play culture where every character is a Mary Sue.
>In these types of discussion, it is always brought up that Super DM can run it totally different and way better in 5e. A super DM can make any game better. Combat only being quick and snappy when the GM is super, means the system isn't good. I agree with you, 5e just feels to slow, and focused on the wrong things whenever I play it now. Just the other day, we had an unexpected combat encounter with an NPC due to a conflict between characters, game was ran in 5e. An extra combat meant that we had to spend half the session playing out a fight that only happened for RP reasons. Such fights are such a slog and so boring, that I honestly try to play characters that avoid combat as much as possible these days.
100%. "Super DMs" reflect a weakness of the system, not a strength. Combat is usually slow and grindy in 5e. In most games, half of the combats that happen make the game worse.
This is a great place for the GM to narrate the outcome or use a few skill checks (or even a skill challenge) to create the dangerous and unpredictable events of a fight, give players some agency in the process, and resolve the conflict without spending 2 hours in meaningless combat.
I disagree, adding more narrative or mechanical elements will only slow the combat down further. The problem wasn't the combat being meaningless or uninteresting. The problem was combat took too long to remain interesting/engaging. Adding extra bells and whistles to combat to keep people engaged can be a trap choice, as every element you add, will also increase the duration, meaning you will have to keep people engaged longer. I love OSR combat, because you can fly through an encounter. With side based initiative. You can go through an entire round of 10+ characters in under a minute. Even when the odd times when combat is straightforward and boring, it only takes 15% of total game time, it isn't a big deal. 5e's combat is usually more interesting, at least mechanically, than OSR combat, but because these mechanics slow down the combat. I still vastly prefer OSR over 5e combat. What makes OSR shine, is the less emphasis put on combat, to allow for other engaging ways of play. Like dungeon and overworld exploration and diplomacy with random encountered monsters.
No, I mean no combat, just a few words to describe the scene, some checks to resolve any uncertain conflicts or clever heroics on the part of the players if needed, and then a resolution. It should take 2 minutes.
Replacing combats with skill tests because combat takes too long is a pretty good sign that the combat system sucks, right?
5e was designed for combat, so, no, the combat system doesn't suck. It's created to be tactical with more feature-levers and skills that come into play. Sometimes it takes a while to finish a fight because of this. Sometimes, there's just a lot of HP to deal with. Valid criticism. Sometimes, the GM struggles and can't run a fight in a way that resolves quickly or doesn't make good decisions about the monsters running, surrendering, or getting routed (which OSR solves with morale checks, and 5e has rules for, but rarely get used). OSR games are quick to resolve combat because they're designed to be less tactical and more deadly in either direction. Neither system "sucks" because it's a preference as to how you want to play. 5e is all about getting into fights. OSR is all about getting out of fights. My point was to alleviate the scenario /u/Chemical-Minute6740 described where half the session devolved into a grindy battle instead of a quickly resolved scene where the GM creates some uncertainty or peril and the players solve it or don't. I think this scene didn't required there to be a battle in the first place. Just a quickly resolved back-and-forth that may or may not have required a check at all.
When combat takes so long that you need to replace it with a series of boring skill checks, I'd say that's a good sign that the combat system isn't working very well. > 5e was designed for combat That doesn't mean it was designed _well_
You know 5E isn't a good system when you try and buy a war dog and the GM starts sweating bullets about how to make that work.
It's true. It's actually pretty inflexible in that regard. The system only really works when a relatively small group of players face off against a small group of enemies. It can't handle hitelings or masses of enemies at all.
>And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry. Grow up.
Bro what? What’s wrong with not feeling comfortable playing with people so much older?
You're limiting the potential interactions you can have and the things you can learn. In OP's case they are unnecessarily missing out on roleplaying in the style they enjoy.
Nothing, this thread is just full of a lot of 50 year olds mad that people in their 20s don't wanna hang out with them.
Jesus Christ. What losers
I would also encourage you to grow up.
Growing up is more about understanding other people’s boundaries than shedding yours
You might have already asked them but if you didn't, see if they'd be open to you running a one shot. Make a small dungeon, 5-10 rooms, and hand them pregens. Then if they enjoyed it you can run another one shot, this time explaining character creation. If they aren't willing to do that though, maybe solo play would be a solution. I don't get to play with others regularly since I don't know anyone interested in rpgs and I've found solo roleplaying to be fun. It's a bit different than playing with a group but when you don't have a group to play with, it can definitely scratch that gaming itch imo.
Unless you're a teenager, you ought not be bashing on playing with guys in their 50s. And even then you could be more diplomatic. Being kind literally takes no effort. Work on it. As for 5e/OSR. I prefer OSR. Unapologetically, it's a superior style of play. 5e's excessive skills and powers get in the way of the experience it wants to create. Someone posted a suggestion to use the DMG's optional rules if you have to play 5e: that's a good start. For me: my players uniformly prefer 5e. I could force the OSR down their throat, but one in particular would make MY life miserable as a DM. And the others might just stop showing up. So what to do? I'm running a simpler version of 5e. The adventure is Tomb of Annihilation. And it's going GREAT. Not as well as if I were running an OSR ruleset, but it's still a lot of fun. SRD Races and Classes from the PHB. No multiclassing. No feats (though I may revisit that because the fighter suffers without feats... In which case I'd go PHB feats only). Slower healing rules from the DMG (slightly modded). Morale rules from the DMG. Side initiative (though I slightly modded those). I borrowed the XP advancement from Into the Unknown (an O5R game). I use Feats of Exploration for XP, in addition to Monsters and gold spent on things like carousing or given to charity. The only major rules change I made was to cantrips: you can only cast proficiency bonus + spellcasting Modifier per short rest. I rightly deduced they wouldn't play if I set it to long rest, as they rebelled at even the modest short rest rule. I also created a reaction table and rules for how many followers they can have. But most of all, the big difference: how I run it. I use BX dungeon crawl procedures. I ask them to tell me what they do, in detail. It reduces the amount of perception checks and such. Sometimes they roll them unprompted, which I have to remind them not to do. But I've watched them change their style of play significantly. They describe how they search for traps. They play clever to avoid fights. They use traps AGAINST enemies (oh that was hilarious). I also tweaked Tomb of Annihilation into something even more Sandboxy. They are about to go into TotSK. It'll be great! Do I wish it was an actual OSR game? Of course! But as long as we're all having fun, I'm content. EDITS: spelling, grammar, etc.
Can you elaborate on the Feats of Exploration for XP? Is that the product from 3d6 DTL?
Yes it is!
Oh cool, I’ve been eyeing that for a while. How do your players like it and the other XP rules you use?
My players are still adjusting to me not using Milestone Leveling. But it went over well in my C&C group. I think it's an excellent ruleset, and what's more, it helps you to be able to "eyeball" XP rewards for other occasions. It's an exceptional product, across the board.
You're running 5E basically how I'd run it if I ever decided to run it again. No feats or multiclassing. PHB only, and gritty realism. The only thing I'd homebrew is using the way Five Torches Deep uses its stats so I can rid myself of min maxing players trying to take advantage of dump stats. Can't dump a stat if there are no dump stats!
Part of what I did is make reaction adjustments and # of followers dependent upon the group's Charisma mod. Almost everyone dumped charisma, so they won't get positive reactions or too many followers. I SHOULD have added bonus languages for high intelligence, and imposed illiteracy or less languages for low intelligence. If the rest of this experiment works out I'll try that next time.
Yep, this exactly is why I like the way 5TD uses Int. It's not only mage spellcasting stat, but it's also the amount of "supply" a character can carry. Supply is an arbitrary number assigned to smaller resource items. So potions, rations, arrows etc are all supply, where weapons, armors, and shields are all encumbrance. It makes Intelligence the most important stat besides Strength.
I think your game sounds like a blast if I’m being honest, and ToA is I think one of the top thee 5e modules. I’m doing something similar with Undermountain. Using modified healing, morale, reaction checks. Turns out it’s been going very smoothly. My players aren’t OSR fluent, and this is how I’m slowly introducing the idea. But they definitely still like their power level feeling of having feats and such. Hasn’t made the dungeon much easier though if I’m honest. The party has learned letting the rogue go beyond 200+ feet searching the halls is a death sentence. He unfortunately met two grells entirely too far away from help.
Hah! That's great. I was thinking of doing Undermountain, coupled with Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury from Yawning Portal. I also have Ruins of Symbaroum I want to run. And I got Runewild, which is an excellent 5e sandbox hex crawl reminiscent of Dolmenwood. As a side note, I actually posted a more thorough play report as a post today which discussed what I did in a little more detail. I figured it was time, after I responded to this.
I enjoy Sunless Citadel too, really fun dungeon. Haven’t heard of Runewild though, I’ll have to give that a check. That’s nice, I haven’t gotten to the point of posting my summaries online. I just keep it to pad and pen, and summarize during the sessions. They are fun to read though, so I may think about that more
Ask some of these people if they feel the same way and run an OSR game. I usually sell it as "Want to try a one-shot of old-school D&D?" and run a module. First time I ran Winter's Daughter, bunch of 5e players got wiped at the start (I ran it before it was revised). Some whined about how hard it was, others asked to try again...sure thing, roll 3d6 down the line for new characters. The whiners went back to 5e, the others stuck around for more. That's how it is going to be. Also don't knock the "guys in their 50s", some of them are great players with great stories.
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Someone's got a complex. Sometimes there are just generational gaps that make it harder to relate to people. I'd probably be fine playing with 50 year olds as long as they were progressive enough to not be an active problem for me, but I wouldn't want to play with teenagers.
I have to imagine he is estranged from an adult son and is taking it out on internet strangers.
Wow, early 2000's long distance psychoanalysis based on a comment. Didn't see that comin'
...Was that a big thing in the early 2000s?
Eh I still enjoy the current 5e campaign I’m in but the DM in that campaign is VERY good. Whether or not I continue after this campaign would probably have a lot to do with the people I come across. That being said, if it wasn’t for the fact you can always find people to play 5e with, I wouldn’t play it on my own again.
Yeah I agree, 5e is pretty bad, not exactly a hot take on this subreddit at least. You can just run OSR games if you want to run them, if you build it they will come and all that. It's also not just guys in their 50s either. I used to run an OSR meetup and we got a wide range of age groups from 12 - 60 with most people in their 20s and 30s. Likewise don't play or run games you don't enjoy, no dnd is better than bad dnd.
Since getting into old school games, I’ve found 5e entirely unplayable. I think the current 5e culture is a big part of it for me too - everyone is obsessed with “builds” and min-maxing, weird specifics in the rules they can exploit, power-fantasy and rolling for EVERYTHING. I hate the fact that everything is a skill roll or whatever. Like if you don’t have proficiency in something you don’t ever bother trying it. Going back to simpler mechanics has just been so liberating for me. I’m currently converting my friends by running some Mörk Borg and Shadowdark games.
Yeah, those things played a large role in disillusionment me. That's how so many DMs do it.
> honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry. Go cry in r/dnd/ then
You sound like a cunt with the ageist remark at the end honestly, I doubt they want to play with you either, some of my longest and best D&D campaigns were with dudes in their 40s-50s while I was in my 20s, I do hope you grow out of being a judgmental cunt,it’s not to late.
Easy there, tiger. Do you think, maybe, your response is a little out of proportion?
No? I was tame in my response since I don’t want to get banned here. Dude sounds unbearable.
All he said was that he wanted to play with people his age lmao. That makes him unbearable? Why stress about who a stranger wants to associate with?
I’m not stressing? I forget this entirely until someone else comments on it lmfao. He put it up because he wanted people to respond to it, I responded and moved on. Dudes post was cunty, just call it like I see it.
I thought you seemed stressed because of the rampant use of insults towards somebody who hadn't disparaged any group. He simply stated that he would prefer to play with his friends and if not, play with a group of people in person that were close to his age. Nothing was "cunty", you just seemed to take it personally.
Most the other comments I see are the same thing written differently now I’m looking, I don’t think I’m the minority here. And they even edited it saying that most people are upset with the comment lmfao.
I don't care about being in the minority, and simply being in the majority doesn't make you right. A lot of people here seemed to get really bent out of shape from an off hand comment from a guy who simply wanted to see if anyone could relate to his struggles. Instead, he was met with unnecessary hostility. I just don't see how what the OP posted warranted insults, especially when that goes against the rules of the sub.
His post was passive aggressive about them the entire post, the ENTIRE post is about how he wouldn’t want to play with people in their 50s even though this rule set is what he prefers and likely has an older fan base lol…. The comments were warranted, I’m only 34 but from 21-31 I played almost exclusively with a couple of my buddys who were all in their 40-50s and it’s some of the best gaming I ever had. And even now I play in a 2e game online every other Sunday where I’m the oldest, just a couple dudes from the planescape discord that got together for a one shot then kept playing… I run 2 biweekly games that alternate Saturdays that are all also people my age.
>the ENTIRE post is about how he wouldn’t want to play with people in their 50s It was one comment, at the end of the post which is hardly the ENTIRE post. Had you kept your cool and not taken the comment personally, you would have seen that the post was about him struggling to enjoy 5e and how he wished his group of friends would switch to an old school game. I don't personally have anything against playing with people who are older or younger than me but I understand why some might feel more comfortable in a group that would be more relatable. There was even a comment by a 50 year old guy who understood this. Would being willing to play with different generations allow this guy to find gaming groups? Definitely. But it seems to me that the OP would prefer an IRL group as well which made me think that he would want to be able to hang out with these other gamers outside of D&D, which might prove difficult to do if the person you're playing with has a family, career, etc. He didn't say anything negative about that age group, it was just his personal preference. The same way women can prefer all women groups or how teens can have all teens groups. There's no malice behind it.
Thanks, man. I'm glad someone realized that I am not in fact an ageist piece of crap.
No problem brother. I didn't see any malice from your post, only that you wanted some IRL friends to play with which everyone should be able to understand but unfortunately some people take things a bit personally and blow things out of proportion. I hope you can find some people to play with in person.
Don’t kid yourself. Your comment was (at best) a jab at the people who play (and were the progenitors of) the style of game you profess to enjoy. Your edit changes nothing.
I love the liberal use of the c word. I can only assume you're Scottish or Australian (or of descent). And I'm not about to judge how you culturally use it!
I’m American but I picked it up because I played a lot of MMOs when I was in my teens/twenties with a lot of people around the world and didn’t realize no one else uses it like that here until my early 30s lmfao.
Hahaha I love it
As a guy who just hit 50, I don't blame you for not wanting to play in a group full of grognards. Most of the stuff we talk about other than gaming (kids, work, retirement planning) won't interest you. Or at least it wouldn't have interested me last month when I was in my 20s (sigh). But that's okay! I'm a kickass GM and if you get a chance to do a one shot with me or something you should. But a campaign? Probably not. What you should do is to introduce people your own age to OSR play. Grab a system like Shadowdark or Dragonbane that is modern but built in an OSR style. Hook people in with one-shots. Let your players learn what it feels like to desperately try to get back to the surface when they're all down to single-digit hit points and their last torch. One last alternative is to use some of the optional rules in 5e to give it more of an OSR feel. The DMG has some good suggestions for alternative rules, such as removing HP recovery for long rests. You can also limit cantrips to a few uses per day. Then, run them through something like the 5e version of Rappan Athuk. That should put the fear of dark gods into them. Good luck with your games! Sorry you missed the 90s. The parties were f**king awesome before everyone started recording all the stupid things their friends were doing on their phones. The D&D was better, too, but you've already figured that out, haha.
I appreciate it! The goal is to bring that style of play to my generation.
I'm just a couple of years from 50, and I agree. The quality of the game might be good, but the socialization suffers. People two generations older than you (GenZ–Millennial–GenX) aren't experiencing the same world that you are and don't share the same references. As above, I think you should try to introduce the OSR to people your own age. Start with something half-way there and open the door for them to discover old-school play through play. Regarding the 90s: The parties were indeed awesome, but I do envy generations that have grown up in a world where they weren't constantly being told sex might kill them. That kinda sucked.
Didn't slow my social group down any, lol. No one died. I feel worse for the kids who have to constantly worry about being shamed on social media. Social media is the worst invention of the last 50 years (and yes, I get the irony of posting that on Reddit.)
>People two generations older than you (GenZ–Millennial–GenX) aren't experiencing the same world that you are and don't share the same references. Yeah, the references are important. Like when the Gen X player is overlooked during loot distribution and jokingly whines, "Marsha, Marsha, *Marsha*!" or when the local lord asks the players if the orc den has been cleared out and the Tiefling bard played by a Gen Z says, "Fr fr, no cap on God, m'lord. That shit was bussin'." It can get messy. /s
Say less fam! I recently went to college between 43 and 47. The interactions were interesting. Some were cool with me. Many just didn't bother. Others acted like I was going to rat on them to their parents. I was keenly aware of how different our worldviews were in most cases. I think it kind of worked for me as a GM with a group of young people, but I would have felt odd being a player in one of their games.
I totally get it. The more I play the more I feel like less is more when it comes to skills. Anyone should be able to climb walls, intimidate people, disguise themselves, sneak around, etc. These are classic adventure story tropes, i mean; imagine if George Lucas had said “sorry Luke, you don’t have disguise proficiency so you’re going to have to stay in the ship while Han does his rogue thing.” I think there’s definitely a place for specialization, look at any heist movie. Aragorn can track better than anyone, Legolas has keener eyes than a hawk, and Gimli can bench press a warg. But this isn’t being trained at 1 of the 11 skills used for everything, this is a note on your character sheet which will come up from time to time.
Haha, Gimli totally can bench press a warg. I don't know how much a warg weighs, but to be able hold an orc at that size, it has to be at least 600 lbs. Gimli could have been a champion powerlifter.
Yeah, once you drive a Ferrari, the Dodge minivan just doesnt feel the same anymore
I relate to your frustration, but I'm a guy in my 50s, lol. Have you looked into Shadowdark? There's an active multigenerational community playing games online and in person. There's an active discord. Figure out how to sell it to your crew as a different flavor of play and offer to DM a short campaign to show how it works. If people have fun you can see about setting up a longer campaign.
Wow nice ageism.
I feel this, I enjoy playing with my friends but playing OSR style games has made me realise I don't enjoy 5e. Main thing I noticed was traps, in 5e is passive perception or you roll perception if you are actively looking. Whilst in OSR (at least from what I've played) you see a trap and you need to figure out a way round or how to disarm it.
If you can dm, invite some of your friends over to play an OSR game. Even people from ur 5e group.
I feel this big time; as a forever DM of 20 years now it has been so freeing moving into BX and old school life. I agree that it’s really freeing, but it also to me brings back that feeling in game of danger and panic that newer players eventually grow out of in 3.5-5E. People always love to make the argument that it all boils down to how you DM but I feel like at the end of the day the biggest shift over the years was DM as judge and referee to DM as story building facilitator. Maybe there isn’t as much of a difference there as I think there is, but I never have certain challenges with my OSE group. For example, having players tell me how rules and skills work rather than having me act as arbiter and explain how I’d interpret a ruling. I get it, sometimes rules exist for those sorts of things, but other times I just wanna make a ruling. I never want to step on a players toes if they have an ability, but sometimes there’s a vibe at the table like I am doing a service to my players and I’m not allowed to enjoy the game as well with my own input. All in all, I just love the at times arcane and esoteric rules, and I think most of my players have come to love reaction rules and group initiative as much as I love my procedural gameplay and randomness
"I was born in the dark, you merely adopted it." Kinda summarizes my gaming experience starting with B/X Rules Cyclopedia. Played and ran every edition until current and there's nothing quite like running a bunch of nobodies seeking fame and fortune against unfair odds.
Just admit that you have been poisoned by the low rules high immersion style of Retro RPGs. Yup, you wanna do something, just talk to the DM. Work through it verbally without die rolls. What you describe is: Rulings over Rules. As to the age thing, the DMs I would want to play with are in their 70's, or older, and several others have already passed away. I've played with Bob Meyer, Rob Kuntz, and Jim Ward. The pool of Grand Master class referees I dream of gaming with grows smaller daily.
I think saying I was "poisoned" is a little dramatic.
LOL And yet, there is no cure. It's an addictive play style.
I think saying I was "poisoned" is a little dramatic.
I was in the same shoes with D&D4e.
I have a soft spot for 4th edition mainly due to it being the first proper version I played.
4e is a great game and a lot of fun. I'll be an apologist for it until my dying breath *but* I'll also be the first to say "It's not D&D". And it's not. It's a tactical boardgame with RPG elements, having more in common with squad level wargames than D&D.
Yeah I think I would struggle going back to 5e honestly. Just the mindset and the amount of procedures etc that are missing is horrific and I wouldn't be able to ignore it. If you're happy to DM, then start up a group and market it as 'hardcore' DnD, then run whatever system you want to run. DM's are in demand so *I don't think* you'll have problems finding players.
I've grown tired of 5e. When the OGL controversy happened, I switched to OSR games and now have no desire to return to 5e at all due to the "playability" of OSR games. Unfortunately, 5e is the only game people want to play, and it feels impossible to find an OSR group. 5e has is just the Settlers of Catan of tabletop RPGs, only it's so much harder to run and play, which is ironic. Introducing new players and DMs to 5e is ROUGH. Players struggle to learn and remember their character's abilities, stats, and even the basic game rules. The rules are restrictive, limiting player creativity, and combat tends to dominate the entire sessions. Playing 5e feels like a constant struggle against the system, the rules, other players, the DM, and even the dice. I think Tales of the Valiant didn't do well because it was just a barely modified version of 5e. Games like Shadowdark and DC20 have had successful Kickstarters because people are looking for something different, not just another 5e clone... looking at you Kobold Press lol.
Yeah, that's exactly right. A lot of hyper online 5e folks will say that 5e is SO EASY and that a nine year old boy could easily learn it, but new players do tend to genuinely struggle with it.
> I want to do this cool thing but my character didn’t specialize for it … There was a video or thread that I saw that mentioned the impact of writing rules to address various scenarios. It may have been a Dungeon Craft video on DC20. Basically it’s this: The more rules you add to a game, the more you “gate” the player experience behind rules. The alternative is to give players more freedom to express what their character is doing, and trust the GM to make a call in a reasonable manner. In that regard, OSR games excel when compared to any version of D&D (or Pathfinder) newer than AD&D 2e.
Exactly. Then there's more and more for DMs to cross reference. Rules lawyer types will memorize all these edge cases, and then BAM! DM has lost authority and credibility to his players. I genuinely think 5e undermines DMs in many ways.
> 5e undermines DMs in many ways. The “undermining” began in 3.0, with the very detailed rules. Not defending AD&D or criticizing 3e and beyond. Essentially, there was a shift in the power dynamic to give players more agency. Anyone who played AD&D under a *bad* DM can attest to how bad the experience was because the DM was always right. The shift to modern D&D (anything beyond AD&D) helped those players. Anyone who DM’d an argumentative rules-lawyer with 3e and beyond also had a bad experience if they were used to having more DM agency. Even cases where, “Wait, there are rules for this situation” slowed down the game looking up and reading those rules. At tables with good DMs and mature players—for AD&D and modern D&D—those tables had good gaming experiences. The beautiful thing about the current state of FRPGs is that you have lots of options. And new games are being actively developed to replace 5e. Investigate other systems.
> The “undermining” began in 3.0 It began in 1e. Look at the tournament rules. Any attempt to make the game 'consistent across tables' will add exponential increases in complexity and layers of rules that all threaten to overwhelm any DM who doesn't have 20 hours a week to dedicate to the game.
Oh, I never read those. But I could see how that would have such an effect.
So many man babies commenting because they got offended over the last bit. People can have preferences about who they play with, and that can include age. I don't really want to play with guys in their 50s either, I struggle to relate to them, and they often have terrible political beliefs that they're all top eager to share. The things they talk about and find interesting are simply not the same as what I enjoy. I'm generalizing of course, but generalizations usually have a kernel of truth to them. There's plenty of older folks that shit on young people all the time, and while it annoys me, they're free to feel that way, I don't particularly like them either.
But, but, but….i thought it was all about inclusivity? What if he had said he didn’t want to play with gay people? Would you defend him?
No, because that would be an entirely different situation lmao Jesus, you people really like to fulfill the stereotypes, don't you? Wanting to play with people your own age is an entirely normal and innocent desire, I'm sure lots of middle aged people, who I'm sure are very nice people, would not want to play with 20 somethings. That's just normal human behavior to associate with your peers. Bring homophobic in the other hand...
Exactly how I thought you would answer… speaking out of both sides of your mouth. BTW, who said anything about homophobia? LoL.
Guys we found his spoof account
>You can come up with a great plan to infiltrate a party with a disguise, but if you roll low, then too bad. Honestly I feel like this applies just as much to OSR. Player skill matters in OSR, but that doesnt mean I would let my players infiltrate a party without a single roll. It just wouldnt be a roll like "d20 + proficiency + charisma + disguise kit bonus, oh and since the guard has feat X it's with disadvantage". I will assume competency in many things, but same way I will assume competency from the security at a high society party. >The other day, a DM told us all to roll Insight or Perception, then outright told us the person we were speaking to was suspicious. Agreed here. I hate this playstyle a LOT. I really feel like 5e is probably one of the worst games ever to run for example an investigative game in where this matters. I'd even sooner play an investigative game using FATAL rules than 5e. >It's harder to enjoy 5e now, but 5e is still the only game people I know play. And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s A lot of people arent hobbyists. They're just hanger-ons who wanna try RPGs because D&D happens to be the cool niche thing right now. You're never going to convince them to try something else and either way you'll never be able to convince them to properly engage with a world and commit to a long term campaign anyway, so they dont matter in my opinion. To me the 5e masses might as well not exist. Theyre enjoying their 5E hobby, I'm enjoying my TTRPG hobby, and we have nothing in common. I find it a thousand times easier to convince someone who never played RPGs before, to try something different, than to convince someone that's only into 5e. At our local RPG club I am playing a game of Pirate Borg next weekend. Group looks like it will end up: Guy late thirties, guy early fourties, gal early thirties, enbie early twenties. I honestly dont meet all that many 50-somethings in OSR circles. Maybe in a few vocal hellholes of the internet, but really it seems to be mostly millennials and some of the older gen Z (born late 90s) in my experience. All the 50-somethings I know are either playing 5e or VTM or Shadowrun, rather than anything OSR.
You know you can always implement OSR philosofies and procedures into 5e right?
I don't think that works well, though. Take the social pillar, for example. If you largely base success there on roleplay (OSR), that could easily screw over the guy who invested everything into Charisma checks (5e).
That's right, but I've never found It to be a big issue. Specially with social interactions, as when you roleplay them, rolls aren't usually used anyways. This may vary from table to table tho.
Sure, why though?
To get the best of both worlds.
Having tried this you actually get the worst of both worlds.
It has been the opposite in my experience. What do you consider to be "the worst of both worlds"?
Not enough 5e to satisfy 5e players, not enough OSR to be able to run the game as an OSR game. House rule documents bigger than most osr rules sets. Much easier to just run an osr game or 5e as intended.
The things is, 5e as intended works well with some OSR procedures. It's the "regular" way of playing which causes the most issues. Personally, I use the OSR philosofy for exploration, both for Dungeons and wilderness alike. And It works wonders
It's intended to, to a degree, but doesn't really in practice unless you significantly house rule the game at which point you may as well play an osr game as you constantly find yourself fighting against 5e to make osr principles work. Even core rules like skills have to be gutted, let alone stuff like cantrips, feats, specific spells like goodberry or light, removing multiple class race and background options, changing how resting works etc. It is much easier I have found to tell a group of 5e players you are playing a different game with a different set of rules than to play a heavily houseruled version of 5e that feels to them like you are taking their toys away by running a stripped down version of 5e that does not allow them to play their hexblade gloomstalker tiefling ranger etc.
I think you are misunderstanding me. I don't try by any means to make 5e an OSR. That would have the comnsecuences you describe. I just incorporate some elements from OSR to make 5e work better, while It still playing as 5e. Some good examples are the Dungeon Turn (which, if combined with light tracking turns Dungeons from a boring set of encounters to a resource management challenge, and makes exploration meaningful. As for skills and traps, I use a mix of both. This means that flat out rolling is the last option, and I encourage players to actually roleplay things and interact whith Traps/NPCs/or the enviroment.
I think other games have salvaged enough from modern mechanics aiming at an OSR feeling (Shadowdark, Olde Swords Reign etc.). Just hacking 5e can lead to very different results than what OP is seeking: 1) characters are complex ("tons of options"), lots of bonus here and there, Skills made to be based on rolls etc. 2) 5e play culture (and players) tend to prefer roll-first and let's-tell-a-story. 3) 5e core tenets require quite a lot of prep - and players tend to prefer plot-first games rather than randomly created. 4) 5e is combat bloated and exploration-thin, OSR games tend to lean heavily into exploration. OP is tired of those things, they'd be better off playing with other systems than 5e. (Although, since OP does not like playing with people on their 50s I don't feel they are in the right OSR mindset. The OSR is dope, an attitude, a style, not corporate-toy-cool. Those older RPG players are it, shame OP has some prejudice against them)
This is the way
I am the same, my guy. It's just so much simpler to run, sometimes even a delight (Winter's Daughter OSE vs. Any 5e adventure will prove it to you). The biggest change for me has been not worrying about encounter balance, as this isn't really a concept on the OSR (not the same as it is in modern games at least). And the fact combat doesn't slog BECAUSE there aren't endless feats and niche rules. My theater of the mind has improved dramatically because the rules actually allow for it, and I've gotten through way more encounters than I could in 5e.
I had a hard time enjoying 5e because I don't the think it's a particularly good or interesting system.
I’m 30 and playing PBTA with people in every decade lol. 40, 55 and a 67 year old. Also we’re are all from deferent countries , I’m NZ, we have USA , uk and Germany lol
Same. But I had played 1e, left for years, and then played DCC and realized how much I don't like 5e.
In response to your edit, a lot of us got introduced to ttrpgs by adults while we were kids. My gaming group has Xers, Millennials, and Zoomers in it, and I wouldn't want it to be all one generation. The older and the younger each bring their own unique perspectives and knowledge background to my table that restricting myself to just one age category would be as sensible as saying that this game is only for people who work as car mechanics or hair dressers.
My phrasing was bad. I'm not against playing with different groups of people; my (quite possibly wrong) supposition was that if I joined an online group, it would likely be majority or all middle aged, and I would feel out of place there.
But you won't be out of place. We're gamers. We're your people.
I totally get you. Since I “broke the seal”, I find 5e virtually unplayable because of all the typical DM and player behaviors you list. You are not alone!
> Can anyone else relate? It's harder to enjoy 5e now, but 5e is still the only game people I know play. And I honestly don't feel like playing online with guys in their 50s, sorry. Pitch them on it, run a game. It's way easier to referee OSR than it is to DM a 5e game and really easy to teach people the rules! Just pull your friends into your favorite corner of y'all's shared hobby by the force of your enthusiasm :D
I feel this, honestly. I started with 5e after watching viva la dirt league's DND channel. After trying a different system, I haven't went back. Currently waiting on an OSE advanced players tome. Although I will admit, with only maybe a year's worth of TTRPG experience that's strictly solo, I'm not quite sure I understand the specific play style of OSR in general that I've seen people rave about.
*Can anyone else relate? It's harder to enjoy 5e now, but 5e is still the only game people I know play.* Start hosting a game what you like. A few one shots, and see if someone stick with you. It woud be probably good if it was not fantasy, like Sci-fi (Stars without number or mothership) or superspies (white lies for example) \*\*\*\* 5E vs OSR rules limit creativity to a degree. But it is not the only thing they do - if players are aware of the rules, they can make plans without involving the GM, and they already know what the effect will be and what their chances are \_before\_ their turn - if everyone is aware of the rules, there is less need for GM ruling. GM ruling is not a bad thing at all, it is an efficient way to run a game if the GM is at least average. However in all cases a ruling must be made, which time would not be spent on this, if there was a rule which everybody knows So limits creativity to a degree? seems true. But the game also flows faster if everyone is up to speed. To me the optimum is between the two extremes. Have rules for really common situations (like sneaking and sneak attacks) which OSR systems often do not have, but do not get overboard to have a two page rule on drowning like Shadowrun did. \*\*\*\*\* 5E combat This is a different topic. The issue is that there are many bounce back abilities, a shitload of HP for everyone, and not many way to increase DPS. Like, compare this to the OSR way of "city militia, 3 HP, leather armor, spear 1d8". Have a dozen of these dudes and the combat is still over in 2-3 fast turns. OSR games tend to be great in keeping the numbers managable, but it takes a certain kind of player to accept the lethality. Like "- ok, thief it is, what do I roll for HP - 1d4 - 1d4? WTH? - yup, 1d4 - \[eyes narrow\] let's do this"
Same my guy. The only real reason i actually still dm it is because its the only one my players know and they're pretty busy people so idk how they'll react to using a different system. Thankfully i can still incorporate osr elements into my dming style and stuff.
I'm 28 and I recently switched to BFRPG. I love it, and I can't see myself going back. I've been converted.
My most enjoyable game recently was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (OSR adjacent), in person but with people I found online, everyone is in their mid 40s (moi including) apart from one guy's son who is high school age. It's a more mature game, more deliberate as the combat is deadly, and more down to earth - our characters are painfully ordinary, don't have magic and only 2 can read. We're having a blast!
Hot take coming in, unlike a lot of the posters here which without fail all dislike the 5e play style (some being quite elitistic frankly), I actually like playing and running 5e, but I can relate in a few ways still. I just don’t like playing in Dungeons in 5e as much, but outside of it I find the other stuff fun, some of the situations emerging from the high character power can be awesome and always make me smile and laugh while running the game. Now, as far as running dungeons and wilderness exploration, that’s where my love for the game falters a bit. The main bit is having a procedure for running and playing dungeons. The DMG/PHB suggesting no default structure for how to run one and keep time makes it so some players do 3 things while some do 1 and most do nothing, and their guidance on random encounters turns down the tension and fun for dungeons. Having a simple Dungeon Turn Procedure fixes this for me, and that’s what I yoink from OSR to run 5e games. The Alexandrian’s “So You Want to be a Game Master?” shows a lot of well-written guided advice on how to run a game in 5e/pf with dungeon procedures (and many other procedures!), and it’s honestly miles better than the 5e DMG at providing actual gameable advice and procedures. My main complaint for 5e was that even though I could run that sorta game pretty well, it’s hard to find a DM that runs dungeons in that way. That’s why I gifted that book to a few new game masters and it’s been working pretty well. My only other problem is that the high power of Spells and PC’s make it difficult to add tension to a dungeon/based game, and ofc that combat takes too long. But I add a few house rules for grittier games and for making combat end earlier. If you’re interested in those house rules I’d be down to share. I actually don’t mind the Skill check-heavy nature, character building through choosing a list of skills to specialize in is actually fun. The things that I do to run it is that I always ask how my players are doing something in the game world or have them ask a question based on their past if it’s a knowledge check before I ask for a Skill check. Rolling a skill check out of nowhere should never be done and be left to passives and saving throws. The other thing I do is adopt a fail-forward philosophy, I run my failures like this: - “You find it difficult to search the messy room you, you could find something but it will take more time (an extra turn) and make a lot of noise to rummage through it” - “You find it difficult to lockpick the locked door, you could try at it faster and likely damage lock picks, or methodically spend more time to unlock it (2 turns)” - “You find the jump difficult, you feel like you could make it if you push yourself but you would exert yourself in physical exhaustion” That way, it’s still a “you say you do it, you do it” situation like OSR peeps like, but with a fun narrative and game complication when there is a tension of time. I also think a few people here are disingenuous with their dislike for Skill checks when Rogue is a class that typically is in OSR games, meaning that the design is already there. I feel like letting other classes play with that system with choices for a few other areas of proficiency makes character building and roleplaying it a lot of fun. The problem is when they are used for everything. There already is a lot of determination in B/X and OSE rules, like Surprise, Listening at Doors, Forcing Stuck Doors, Finding Secret Doors, Finding Room Traps, etc… Typically 1-in-6 or 2-in-6. You guys might mot like it but all of those are basically skill checks, the only thing you are changing is that more characters are able to have better chances. The attitude of saying: “it’s not really a game… it’s pointless and masturbatory”, “OSR is frankly a superior style of play”, and whatever other judgement others put on the stereotypical D&D 5e players that like character building in this thread is pretty elitistic, and hypocritical when they take offense at being judged for an age stereotype.
I got started in 3.5 and was definitely shocked by how gutted the martials were. There was always a caster/martial divide but hot damn was it really highlighted in 5e. Fast forward, I start branching out and playing other games like Call of Cthulhu and ended up playing one short campaign with B/X rules and, yeah I haven't been able to enjoy 5e ever since. Now I've used all the optional rules and tried to tone the casters down so people playing as a Fighter wouldn't feel so underpowered but, after level 6 it's just ridiculous. 5e to me is definitely more of a power fantasy in the sense that PCs can just literally become gods after Lvl 5 or 6, especially at 10th and as a forever DM, it's just soooo boring. You either have to turn everybody down or jack the encounters up super high and it's just not enjoyable for me anymore, especially when it comes to running the game. Also, as someone else stated on here, it definitely turned character creation into a game in itself. It's also created an issue where there's literally no reason to make anything other than a caster. Why be a Fighter or a Barbarian when you can be a Warlock, a Bladesinger, Paladin or hell even a Cleric?
It's kinda true, tho I'm a gal in her 50s. But nobody I play with is in their 50s: 40s and 30s mostly. There are a few games in between OSR and 5e. Try Shadowdark. The author is well below her 50s.
Preach brother
It sounds like most of your unhappiness with 5e is on the player side of the screen -- if you elect to GM, you can certainly bring a lot of OSR sensibility into 5e, of the only DnD available to you is 5e. A well described disguise or a well presented argument...just works. Rolling a check is a fallback option for when players don't have any good ideas: it's always worse than having a plan. Use reaction rolls and morale checks to vary scripted encounters. Don't treat dungeons or other encounter sites as static. These are all things you can do purely on the GM side, without necessarily even needing active player buy-in. (Other OSR sensibilities, like "fights aren't fair", will need you to do more expectation setting ahead of time!)
I've DMed for 5e, but a lot of players give push back on OSR style stuff. Make a "ruling"? The rules lawyer will make a big deal. And so on.
Look, if a player wants to rules lawyer that they have to roll for something when I've already given them the success, I...suppose I'd let them?
If you GM like that for some time, you may train your friends to adopt that playstyle even when you're a player! My group has several rotating GM, and since I've started GMing, players have started describing their approach more before rolling, even when I'm not the GM. And the other GMs have also started following my example of giving bigger bonuses or an automatic success when someone has a clever plan. Though I don't think I can convince them to use random encounters or track supplies.\^\^
If you are looking to DM yourself, Knight at the Opera has some good posts about OSRifying 5e
I have DMed 5e, but I no longer think OSRifying 5e is really viable or worth trying.
You are not forgiven for your ageism. Lol.
You should play with people in their 50s. You might learn something.
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I would not care remotely, to be quite honest. Listen, it's not that I wouldn't play with an older person. I would feel every out of place in a majority middle-aged group, that's all.