Owlbear's Nest

With the various comings and goings of players we have been jumping systems and campaigns for our sessions in the last year We started as a 3.5 group, but when the players started dropping out we went to the freshly pressed 5th edition. I think it's a good system that just needs to be learned.

With another dropout from 5th we jumped to old-school with a Basic adventure. I like Basic as it instills within me warm senses of nostalgia. I don't like it's out-dated clunkiness. What I should have done is used some updated OSR rules and called it Basic. Same feel, clearer rules. But the one guy really wanted to see Basic and the others didn't care so I went with Basic.

The players, being raised on 3.5 didn't really appreciate the simplicity of Basic. "There's not enough options!" They complained. "What do you mean no skills?!" Because things weren't spelled out in the rules the assumption was that they couldn't be done. Again, Straight Basic is a bit clunky so I agreed with some of their complaints. After all, this is why folks have been House-ruling the game since it's inception. A few well-placed house rules could have eased the burden. If I was a bit less rusty I could have made better executive decisions during play. Though I don't think it would have made the Magic-User happy. "I Only get 1 spell per day?" or the thief, "Wow, the thief skill percentages suck. I guess I'll just stab with my dagger and hope not to be killed."

It finally dawned on me that one of the difference between Basic and 3.5 is the status and progress of the PC's. In Basic, they become heroic and awesome by surviving their adventures. It's the hero's journey in a way. But in 3.5 and later, the PC's start off with great powers and awesomeness. Adventures are just something to do. By already being a cut above regular folk, they are heroes from the get go. In a comic book sense, Basic is the origin story. The first few issues where the character gets their powers and learns to use them and fight. The later editions are every other issue, where the character is established and just does what they do. While I can appreciate the worth of both, I feel like you get more out of play by building up and surviving with the meager character who barely scrape by the goblin encounter.

After a few adventures in Basic to convert the two remaining characters to 5th and try that again. After all, I have the main books, I should probably use them. The more I familiarize myself with them the better they seem. Hopefully with more options we can please these 3.5 players.


What I really should have done was skip Basic and use 2nd edition. The version that I played the most back in the day.