My Experiment with OSR-style 5E

For those of that have been in the game for a while, there is a certain happy nostalgia that goes with playing earlier editions again. After hearing the ambitious goal that 5th edition would be a complete edition covering every time of game that folks wanted, I was intrigued. Could 5th edition really recreate the old AD&D style game?


After playing 5E for a few years (since it came out), I decided to try an experiment to see if I could run an old-fashioned dungeon crawl. I decided to pick up "Veins of the Earth" by Patrick Stuart with art by Scrap Princess and give it a try. I placed it carefully as a whole new Underdark found under Kara-Tur, the Asian-inspired eastern continent of the Forgotten Realms. The party would be a band of new adventurers sent to explore this deadly new world. It would be dangerous, but the rewards would be many.


I put together a set of modified rules, gather pieces, parts, and ideas from various articles on the internet and my own experiences in 5E and AD&D. Here were the house rules I used:


ALLOWED CONTENT
PHB: YES
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: YES
Unearthed Arcana: NO
Elemental Evil: NO
Volo's Guide To Monsters: Yes (including monstrous races!)
Xanathar's Guide to Everything: Yes

• Ability scores will be rolled (1d4+2d6) 7 times and drop the lowest. Place on any ability score. 
• HP is rolled after first level, min of 1. 
• No feats. 
• No multiclassing. 
• Starting equipment per PHB. 
• No base stat above 20. 
• No player may use a race or class they have already played in this campaign for a backup character. 
• All backup characters start at level 1. 
• Tracking of ammunition is in effect. 
• Variant encumbrance rules are in play (PHB 176) 
• DMG additional actions are in play (Disarm, Overrun, Shove Aside, Tumble, Climb onto Larger Creature) 
• There is no crafting in play. 
• No backstories are required and roleplay will be lighter and entirely player driven. 
• Backup characters are required. 

CRITICALS
Criticals can be very disappointing when a player rolls min damage. Critical rolls will now get max damage + rolls rather than just multiple rolls. For most criticals this means the 2x crit would now be max damage plus normal rolled damage. In the case of a 3x crit, the damage would be max damage plus twice rolled damage and so forth.

RESTS
Sleeping (i.e. long rest) in heavy or medium armor gives you only 1/4 (instead of the normal 1/2) hit die back and does not relieve levels of exhaustion. You may take only 1 long rest in a 24 hour period. Long rests last 8 hours. Short rests last 1 hour.

FALLING
A falling object or creature may fall up to a maximum of 500ft per round.Falling damage is 1d20 per 10 feet fallen. Falls under 10 ft do no damage.

CANTRIPS
Characters with cantrips from any source only gain the ability to cast a cantrip 6 times per day. This is the total of all cantrips cast, not per cantrip. This is reset at the end of a long rest.

BATTERED CONDITION
When a creature (PC, monster, NPC, foe, etc) drops below 1/4 hit points, they are considered BATTERED and roll with disadvantage for all attacks, saves, and checks. This does not apply to death saving throws

DEATH ROLLS
Players, get one death roll. A failed death roll means the PC is dead. Taking damage while at zero hit points does not result in a failed death save. However, if the PC takes additional damage equal to the maximum HP while at zero hit points (or after just reaching zero hit points) they are killed instantly.To be clear. if a PC at any time takes damage equal to or greater than the sum of their maximum hit points and their remaining hit points, they are killed instantly.

HIRELINGS
The party may hire up to two hirelings (at a time). Hirelings will be level 0 (background and race rolled randomly by GM (appropriate to the location), but no class levels) and will not engage in combat. They will be controlled by the GM, but will usually follow PC commands. They will attempt to defend themselves from danger. In dire situations, they may retreat to a safe positions or run away altogether. They may assist by doing things like carrying equipment and supplies, acting as a torchbearer, driving a vehicle, repairing equipment, fixing meals, scribing maps and spells, and other non-combat tasks. They may have certain tool proficiencies. Generally hirelings will not join the group without at least 14 days of pay in advance and may require "hazard pay". 

Now the setting is meant to be literally dark, so I added some lore and supporting rules:

• First explorers to the setting have found there is a ubiquitous magical darkness, referred to as "The Bleak", that pervades everything. It causes sight and light to function differently. 
• Darkvision functions without light. Low-light vision doubles the effective range of light sources. All darkvision and low-light vision are limited to a range of 60 ft. 
• Torches and lanterns functions as follows: 
• Torch 10 ft radius dim, 5 ft radius bright light 
• A torch dropped to the ground goes out after 6 seconds (1 round). 
• Lantern 15 ft radius dim, 10 ft radius bright light 
• Can lower hood to reduce to 5ft radius dim light 
• A lantern on the ground will continue to burn. 
• Keep in mind that if you set a lantern down as a free action, you can draw a single weapon as part of your attack action. 
• Specialized lanterns are not in play (bullseye) since we do not track facing 
• Lamps function as a lantern, but do not have a hood
  
• Light-producing spells do not work and radiant damage is always halved in the setting due to its oppressive magically-infused darkness. 
• The following races gain low-light vision: bugbear, hill and mountain dwarf, wood elf, rock gnome, goblin, half-drow, half-orc, hobgoblin, orc, tabaxi, tiefling, yuan-ti, 
• The following races gain darkvision: duergar, drow, deep gnome, kobold 
• All other races are assumed to have normal human-equivalent vision. 
• Class-based vision features function normally, however they are limited to 60 ft. 
• Polymorph, wild-shape and other transformations may add blindsight, tremorsense, and other 'seeing' like senses. None of these will allowing seeing (on a map) at ranges over 60 ft. The GM may provide additional information at ranges greater than 60 ft where appropriate. 
• A character starting combat has disadvantage on initiative if they cannot see their own square due to darkness or if they are unable to see any enemies due to darkness. 
• The blinded condition applies when unable to see in darkness. 
• Automatically fail skill checks that rely on sight. 
• Attack rolls against the character have advantage if they cannot see the attacker. 
• Attack rolls by the character have disagvantage if the cannot see the target. 

I run with a usually run with a group of 6 and this was no different. I clearly labeled the game as an OSR game and explained to each player the nature of this game. It was going to be dark, deadly, and lighter on roleplay. All of the rules were laid out in a post on roll20 for the game. Everyone was supposed to know what they were getting into.

Several players from my other games joined this game and seemed to enjoy it. However, when recruiting new players, some folks see 5E, are desperate for a game, and will join even though the game isn't for them. I had several players drop from this game, and at least half of them did so because they ignored the OSR nature of this game. Others, clearly dropped because this just wasn't the game for them. Finding OSR players, even after you explain what OSR means to you, is tough. The world of players expects 3.5, 4th, and 5th edition style games. Finding the right players is hard.

We lost about 1 PC per session. Most of the deaths came from PCs charging into fights head on without being careful. Those that made it stayed back, attacked at ranged, hid, or used the other PCs as meat shields. It was clearly the tactics I remember from AD&D that worked well. The combats went as expected. Traps just worked like they were supposed to. 5E did remarkably well.

As a GM, it was a tricky but fun level of freedom to throw balance to the wind and let the party encounter something that could kill them in one blow. I didn't have to tune every encounter. They PCs, being in a foreign environment with totally new monsters couldn't use metagaming. They could use their knowledge skills to try to reason things out, but sometimes being wrong meant putting everyone in danger. Choices mattered.

Overall, the experiment was a success, except for the difficulty in finding the right players.

I probably won't run a game like this again. It doesn't use my skills in a way that makes the game most fun for most players. With the right group, I might run this sort of game by request, but I think for now, I will stick to a bit less OSR version of 5E that I typically run.