In an OSR game, you only fight when you have to, because victory is not a foregone conclusion.

You might also “roll up” your character instead of creating one. Which everyone should at some point, because it’s a whole part of the game that’s disappeared. If you hate trying to come up with a character concept, you might well love a game where the dice can give you some ideas.

Most modern OSR games will tell you that characters have no “plot armor” and are just as vulnerable as NPC’s, just like they were in the old days. But read the rules, and the PC’s actually do have some plot armor after all, just a bit less.

Mappers had to look listen to the description of the DM and try to draw a “good enough” map. Very easy to get things mixed up or one square off, and have to erase and redraw. “A doorway to the left” can be confusing when you’re are heading south and it on the right of your map. Or maybe the DM means the left of the map?

Bear in mind, there was often treasure hidden in secret rooms, so knowing where the unexplored space was could be pretty important.

Once in a blue moon there was a player who got a thrill from that, but most folks hated the hassle.

There was a fair deal of “rules of order” style rules in early D&D.

Ever hear of a “caller”? That was the special player in early D&D rules who got the privilege of telling the DM what the party would do. It did kind of help with big groups, actually.

Better that than being stuck as the “mapper.”

This is just another way to out yourself, gamer.

Had me until your last sentence.

It’s always going to be mixed, to some degree. The challenge is making it work anyway.

Yes, and Noon to 3:00 PM can blow a hole in your free time in a way that something running 7:00-10:00 PM doesn’t.

I put about 6-10 hours a week into RPG’s (DM’ing/playing/prepping) but would never want to play every Saturday afternoon. That would totally crimp my other interests.

Just want to point out Gygax had 2 sons, who are quite different people. I believe you are referring to Ernie Gygax.

Luke Gygax, by all accounts I’ve heard, is a great fellow.

Gygax also elevated Jean Wells in the company before the subsequent management basically made her a secretary. Wells had a decent working relationship with Gygax, which you can see if you read in Dragon magazine “Sage Advice” column from the mid 80’s. Gygax should have listened to Wells more often than he did, but he did try to empower her to make the game more friendly to women.

Still, his legacy towards women in gaming is mixed at best. In the 80’s, TSR games which Gygax was less involved in tended to do better with women, notably Star Frontiers, but also “Basic D&D” which did not include rules making it disadvantageous to play a female character, unlike Gygax’s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which capped female strength below male strength for each race. And I think telling a new D&D player their character would be a lousy fighter is pretty rough.

Yes, there was a pattern in Gygax’s creations of evil female power that went beyond the dragon example. Most notably drow were the only evil elves, and the only matriarchal (he would have said “female dominated”) ones. This pattern wasn’t his invention — it’s as old as Snow White, Cinderella, and the rest — but even in his own time, others (for example, Tom Moldvay) created more inclusive games.

It’s even better when the DM for you!

This can happen with new players who are native English speakers too, as D&D has a fair deal of vocabulary not everyone knows. Words like charisma and melee really got popularized by D&D.

Deep cut here: When I was a kid (ages past) and first heard friends talk about D&D, I thought there was a lens to keep you on the border. And without it, you might go straight Into The Unknown.

Are you quoting something with those ellipses?

If “5.2” were a marketing decision, then it would probably be getting used in their marketing materials. But there you see stuff like “One D&D.”

Incrementing the second number here is in line with general “geek numbering system” convention. It doesn’t seem to me like marketing barged into the production room and insisted on a more “marketable” version number — not that that has never happened, but marketing would most likely have wanted “5.5” not the inscrutable “5.2.”

Shades of the original (only much better art). I like it.

I’m not sure it’s an exact match, but SRD 5.1 was published around the same time as the PH accrued the “This printing includes corrections to the first printing” message in the front matter.

They both contain the corrections from the previously-published errata.

So if you will, if your PH has that message, and it probably does, you’ve probably been playing 5.1 for a while now.

I ran 2 tables in 4E, but when 5E came out they never wanted to go back.

It all came down to keeping track of all the powers, nobody liked that. They also hoarded their encounter and daily powers, rarely using them (and hoarding encounter powers doesn’t make a lot of sense).

I was a little disappointed because the one table was about to hit their paragon paths, which seemed like fun, and the players seemed excited for. It’s a concept I wouldn’t mind seeing in a new game – it was a little like choosing a subclass at 10th level.

SRD 5.1 was released 8 years ago though, long before TCE. And since Tasha’s rules are all considered optional, that book didn’t really revise the rules, just expand on them.

For anyone wondering where this is coming from, WOTC announced their new System Reference doc associated with the upcoming book releases, and that is SRD 5.2.

I agree, that’s the version number. Marketing types might want a catchier name, but “five-two” may be the most clear way to communication what version you’re talking about.

While my players will easily kill 30 minutes collaborating on what to buy, a session like this is definitely more fun if there are NPC’s involved.

We had a memorable session when the PC’s found the Emporium of Evil, where they tried to find the magic items that weren’t TOO cursed, speaking to all manner of morally questionable merchant. (They bought a lot, actually.)

You can also brainstorm the next quest this way. Whether or not the party wants to take a quest from a one of these merchants, they can certainly hear rumors. You can see what they take interest in, and build your next plot arc off of that base.

Some trouble can always pop up when the shopping is winding down, requiring decisive action by the party.

Yes, I play a higher-level wizard who is always running out of spell slots by the end of the dungeon, casting wimpy cantrips and hiding behind the martials. As nature intended.

It’s all about the DM saying no to long-resting whenever and wherever. It may seem like common sense that the players should be able to say when the party should rest. But the game doesn’t work, especially at high levels, unless the DM controls and limits them.

Fair points. I’m a walking rules encyclopedia type, and I’ve been in a number of games where I was like, “What the hell am I supposed to be doing?” And not having any fun.

On the other hand, I’ve brought “D&D only” people along for the ride on other games with good success. The trick is running a good “tutorial level” introductory adventure, where nobody is either bored or frustrated. That’s going to involve introducing the mechanics in digestible bites.

Funny thing about a D&D only mindset is that there are games that are much simpler, where thinking tactically is much less important.

Most folks never did need the books to learn to play. You’ve always been able to learn D&D by somebody (usually their DM) explaining it. But many people end up buying books and things once they’re engaged.

Like any hobby, people spend money on it when they want to. Those solid modules and supplements you mention would be a bit part of that, but also how people feel about the company they’d be supporting matters a lot (this is the so-called “reflective reaction” Don Norman writes about in his book Emotional Design) .