Re: 2e and OSR

If we define OSR as a style of gameplay that focuses on dungeon crawling, resource tracking, combat as war, killing monsters and taking their stuff, 2e does that fantastically. Because the mechanics of 2e *are* the mechanics of 1e, it is literally built for that style of game.

2e has a lot more rules though. That's because AD&D started to position itself as a major roleplaying campaign system starting with 1e. In truth the seeds of it were there in OD&D, it was just never fleshed out. AD&D 1e really expands the fantasy medieval campaigning, but it is frustratingly incomplete. Part of it is due to Gygax's haphazard writing, part of it is the practical constraints of how much content can actually fit in the book. 2e takes that and builds on it, but instead of concentrating on fantasy medieval wargames campaigns, it turns into a sandbox world simulator.

Most of AD&D 1e was written in the editors room between Gygax and Kask, and it shows. Many ideas that seem good on paper turn unworkable on the table (re: polearms). By 1989, AD&D had been out in the wild for 10~12 years, and the staff at TSR had a long time to play and understand its shortcomings. It was with the benefit of this experience that Zeb Cook revised and modified the rules of AD&D for 2nd edition. Though the suits at TSR get a lot of hate, one thing they did right was stress that 2e remain completely compatible with 1e modules and splat, which reigned in any of the more extreme changes that Zeb Cook might have made. I feel that if Gary Gygax had released his version of 2e, it would be something very different from what we now call OSR.

By 1995, the bottom was falling out from under TSR. Splatbook bloat and competing product lines, inventory mismanagement and vanity investments by Lorraine Williams to fill her own coffers had caused TSR to slash most of its product lines out of panic. Ironically, this led to some of their best products in decades. The "Introduction to Advanced D&D" set is a fantastic intro not just to AD&D but the whole roleplaying hobby. And it focuses on town and dungeon crawls just like those OSR purists claim "real" D&D is like. If you need proof that 2e is a fantastic game for OSR style play, just read and play that set. It includes a subset of the full 2e rules, so you don't have to go through the whole core books.

I'm not saying 2e is perfect though. It still contains a lot of jank and clunky mechanics. like any RPG, it needs to be tailored and customized to the table in which it is played. And it has that splatbook problem: some are great, some are terrible, some in between. When I run 2e, my focus is on using it to create "realistic"/believable worlds to play in, and populating it with adventures and danger. (side note: I think my danger quotient might be too high) It is unlike 5e, which fundamentally fights against the OSR style of play by reducing challenge or outright removing it, ignoring resource tracking and focusing on "balanced" narrative encounters.

But if we define OSR as "a secret club that exists in the minds of grognards and wannabe LARPers that begins and ends at arbitrary points in time", then 2e is not and cannot ever be OSR, nor do I see why that should be anything to aspire to.

On a personal note; I do not care whether 2e is considered OSR or not. I enjoy the game because it does what I want out of fantasy adventure gaming. It is clearly old school, compatible with Original D&D (the white box) and AD&D 1st edition, and not part of the 3e and above line of game design.

Rations

Encumbrance values for rations in AD&D 1e are not given in the item list in the PHB, but in Appendix O of the DMG. There are no encumbrance values for rations in AD&D 2e. To me, this means that rations in 2e are weightless.

BECMI’s guidance on the difference between standard and iron rations is that standard rations spoil overnight in a dungeon. I use a different method in my games as a house rule, where standard rations spoil after a week from the date of purchase, while iron rations last forever.

I treat hunger and starvation much like HP - you’re fine until you die. I house rule that after a week without food, the character dies.

Henchmen musing

 AD&D 1e actually has pretty in depth rules for finding henchmen. Players generally aren’t very happy with it, since it costs 100s of gold and in-game weeks to find random lvl 1 NPCs with no equipment. Like all of 1e’s rules, it’s pretty punitive on the players seeking henchmen. This can be justified, as henchmen properly run are a huge boon to the party, and it prevents the henchman from becoming disposable.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a game where the DM used these rules as written. 

My favorite way of introducing henchmen to the party is for them to persuade or subdue NPCs our in the wild to join them.

>>82555592

Side note: Finch’s Primer is bad for converting 5e players, because 5e players can make a simple argument that all his “old school DM” examples can be accomplished in 5e as well. I’ve never gotten much use out of Finch’s OSR primer. It’s probably better to just say what you like about OSR and point out how 5e doesn’t do it.

>>82555773

Finch's primer is just bad in general. Not only does he use strawmen to make his point which will give most readers the impression that OSR people are just boomers with an irrational hatred of any edition post 2e despite having never really touched it (true in many cases), but most of the advice doesn't even apply if you're playing anything but the LBB. Why the fuck OSE still has it listed in the introduction is baffling to me.

>>82555848

Also, hilariously, one of his pieces of advice is literally "add in critical successes and failures" without using that terminology, which is something grogs always say they hate about WOTC editions.

 

 

Documented for posterity

 Running an AD&D 2e game, I had expected to come back and reference the 1e DMG for all the good tables and content. In practice I didn’t feel the need to, even once, as I had all the material necessary for addressing  in game issues within the 2e core books.  Maybe the 1e DMG is better for pre-game prep.

 ranting on discord, copying it here:

B/X is a broken as fuck system. It wasn’t written with an eye towards what plays well, but what reads well. It’s a simplified version of OD&D that tosses out a lot of nuance that makes that game playable. It also contains a mishmash of AD&D elements. “Playtesting”, in regards to BX, is a joke concept.
It’s also a very limited system. BX advertises 14 levels but in reality games fizzle out between levels 6-9, because there isn’t much to do beyond delve into dungeons and travel in between dungeons. BX has wilderness encounters numbering in the 100’s of monsters, but no method to resolve combat at that scale. In OD&D it’s assumed that you would play out the battle using miniatures and the Chainmail rules, BX has no replacement system and no mention of Chainmail. BX mentions the creation of strongholds, but no details on how to do so, what their purpose is, or how to manage them. Even AD&D describes how strongholds can manage henchman and followers.
There’s a reason BX “hacks” and supplements are so popular: you simply need more rules, if you want to play a game that’s more than dungeon crawling with 7 character types. Not “classes”, BX actually just gives you 7 characters that you can modify cosmetically and just play

2e isn’t for everyone. 2e is a fantasy world simulator, and in my very biased opinion, it’s the best at that task. It creates a fantastical world that runs on something approaching real world logic, and gives you the opportunity to run any fantasy in that world. With only some tweaks you can use it to run things wildly different than the standard setting, for example Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer.
2e is a very expansive game, with a lot of rules. It’s not as rules heavy as 3e or even 1e, but it has a supplement for seemingly everything. The core 2e books are intentionally a reaction against 1e’s heavy handed authoritarian style, and presents most of the rules as options that you could slot into your campaign. The thing I don’t like about them though is the writing style and organization. The split between DMG and PHB was a mistake
Mostly, 2e cleans up 1e, fixes most of the obvious contradictions and ambiguities, and presents a core game that runs really well as a light system if you don’t use any optional rules, or a fully simulationist system if you do.
Unfortunately the greatest drawback of 2e is the ‘90s and the TTRPG community at the time. They wanted rules for everything, heavy simulationist approaches, the option to chuck dice at all times, at the cost of imagination. 2e splats followed some very bad trends that eventually left the game abandoned for trendier games like World of Darkness or GURPS. the “rules for everything” approach reached its apotheosis in 3rd edition, which is when everyone realized that it was a bad idea
Though, as a point in its favor, 2e actually has two (three?) mass combat systems, and at least one of them, Battle System, is actually very good. As a result of the splatbook explosion, 2e allows you to play a full game from lowly dungeon delver to domain ruler to Planescape jumper with plenty of official support. BECMI is the only other TSR edition that does that

Retrofitting Mythic into D&D

 I've tried a lot of solo systems, and I keep coming back to Mythic, because every other system just feels like a stripped down version of Mythic. Except the PbtA ones, I guess.

 Mythic doesn't really work with D&D, however, since Mythic assumes a cinematic approach to gaming and D&D assumes a simulationist one. In Mythic, game play is divided into a sequence of scenes, where scenes are chosen in respect to how they push the story forward, and do not have to play out in a linear order and all the unnecessary events in between are ignored. This doesn't really fit D&D's simulationist approach, which doesn't divide cleanly into discrete scenes and the "unnecessary" mechanics of the journey are in fact the greater part of the game. 

But I think that Mythic can be salvaged for use in old school D&D by hacking off the parts that work and repurposing them; specifically Threads, Lists, Events, and Chaos Factor.

Threads are basically the goals of your character, as an end goal like "killing the demon lord" or something on the side like "finding long-lost brother". Mythic has many tools for managing threads and manipulating them at unexpected times. Creating, following, and resolving threads adds a story-driven direction to the game.

Events are the meat and potatoes of the solo engine. Everything revolves around them and most of the solo game will be spent dealing with the consequences of an event. Use events in place of a random encounter. Perform the random encounter check as normal, and on a success turn to Mythic’s event generation rules and fit what happens. The Mythic GME constantly stresses that Events should be defined by the context of the game, and D&D provides the context, whether overland, in town or in the dungeon.

Lists and List Management are necessary paperwork for tracking and manipulating Threads and NPCs in your game. Only add “important” NPCs to the list, as in D&D you’ll probably be generating a lot. When a thread or event states to “Introduce NPC”, that would be one important to the story and should be built accordingly. The 1e DMG has a table of traits for random NPC generation, which I found to be more straightforward than the Mythic one, but has more limited options.

The Fate check is introduced in the Mythic GME as it’s most important mechanic, but I found it’s usefulness limited in old school D&D, as there are usually more concrete procedures for resolving in-game activities. Nevertheless, there are points where procedures or results are unknown, and it’s there that the Fate check comes into play. I recommend using the Fate check from Variations 2.

Most people who play solo don’t like to use Chaos Factor, but I do. I like the element of randomness and the unexpected that it provides. 

I have the Mythic cards, and generally I prefer them for tracking Chaos factor and Lists, but for events and the other checks I like to use Variations 2.