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Sunday, May 17, 2015

Wrapping my head around 5e.

It's been awhile since I've ran a game.  Latetly been discussing with a friend, who'd like to try out D&D for the first time.  I suggested since its his first time we try a little old school, for the most part because as I've said before "It's a set of rules that fit neatly in my head".  It appears however that he'd like to give 5e a go.  Which is totally cool, however I am going to have to sit and really read those rules.  When it first came out I printed off a few character sheets and attempted to make a PC.  I got bored quite fast with the long process of doing that.  I have still yet to finish actually creating that PC lol!  I'm going to go ahead and print off the basic rules and the DM's guide (both free) and see if I can't wrap my head around it.  Regardless of the rules, I think its still going to feel very old school when  I run it, just because that's what I know!  The other good news is that I have a amazon cart sitting with a few other things in it (giant guitar stand) so I think I'll throw the starter set in there just out of curiosity.

I know Goodman Games came out with a few 5e modules, that have gotten some mixed reviews, and I know that Genuis Loci games has come out with a few as well, so I'll probably run one of those rather than the "Mines Of Phaldelver" or however you spell it.

As a side note, I did send the primer for old school gaming and the basic fantasy rule set to my new player.  He has the gist of what Old school is all about.  So I am thinking this whole thing is going to be a bit more O5R rather than 5e.  

Well I'm off to get my head shaved, and enjoy the next two days off.



4 comments:

  1. I just played in a 5e game run by a 3.5e DM for a group of mainly 3.5e players. He ran the Horde of the Dragon Queen. Now I barely understand 3.5, so I would mainly show up with a character I had generated with a computer program. I had fun, but most of the time I had to ask for help before rolling. I didn't find 5e quite as persnickety as 3.5, but I didn't find the "module" that exciting. One player really disliked the new rules. I used the free rules and I found them okay, but when I looked at one of the players' guides, I found the same old muddled rules as 3.5. I think you could steal whatever you like about 5e (advantage/disadvantage rules) and plop them into your OSR game without wrecking the game. Best of luck!

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  2. Your anecdote about the complexity of character creation doesn't fill me with confidence about 5e, although I suppose I'll have to wrap my own brain around it at some point. :)

    One method for convincing new players to try OSR rather than the "latest and greatest" is to sell it to them as "Basic D&D", a version of the game that will teach the fundamental concepts shared by all editions. If you actually have an old set of Basic to pull out, so much the better!

    Hope you enjoy your days off. :)

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  3. @derrick Reeves, I am attempting to talk him into playing Moldvay basic as I have an actual copy of it. He had mentioned that "cantrips" were cool in the basic rules. And of course some of the newer races in 5e. Of course easy enough to convert to basic D&D. And yes I agree it has similarity across the board. I was hoping to run basic fantasy (which I believe has a supplement for cantrips if its needed).

    Sorry about the Ancedote. I am seriously going to attempt to create a few PC's today, since I have some time off. I just don't want our first session to be 3 hours of creating characters, just to have them die lol. That's why I like basic, 5 mins and we are up and running.

    And yes @angry monk, I agree its relatively easy to borrow stuff from 5e and convert to any system that I am using.

    Same muddled rules eh. Hmm. I plan to run the basic free rules. I wasn't able to sleep much last night and was thinking about possible campaign ideas. The thought was Blackmarsh + 5e, so it'd be a bit of old school in there.

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  4. I've come to the conclusion that part of the reason that its taking me for friggin ever to create a PC is the following:

    1. I need to print the rules so I can go back and forth between sections easily. Its a royal pain in the wazoo with the pdf.

    2. I have no actual knowledge of versions 3 - 4. So feats are beyond me. About the only thing I get is ascending ac.

    So I think if I go and print the 115 pages that should make it quantitatively easier to create a pc.

    That said in order to DM this properly I am really going to have to absorb all of this.

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