Grunker
RPG Codex Ghost
Most people here will know I am no fan of AD&D - in fact, I very much have an active dislike of the system.
However, when coupled with my love of rules-heavy systems such as Pathfinder, my distaste for AD&D often gets misinterpreted as a dislike for the style of roleplaying common back then - a style where the focus was on player inventiveness, interaction and group co-creation rather than everything being defined by a vast amount of gamified rules. To the degree that I do sympathise with OD&D fans' criticism of modern D&D (despite disagreeing vehemently with their defense of the actual AD&D system), it's that I agree that the success of 3rd edition kind of smashed most of the mainstream systems development for this older style of playing.
So it's not that I don't like playing these more player-driven, open-ended games, it's just that I never felt AD&D really facilitated that style of roleplaying very well. When AD&D worked it didn't feel much like it was the actual rules doing the heavy lifting - it was the players.
But recently I finally found a system that really pulls of the OD&D style of roleplaying excellently in my opinion:
Dungeon World is quite brilliant. It bases everything from character customization to combat and exploration around a very simple set of basic rules that combine oldschool D&D tropes with some ingenious ways of facilitating player description of actions as being the driving force behind interactivity rather than just what you've written on your character sheet. Basically, a short list of "Basic Moves" covers pretty much the bulk of what might require a roll in the game, and Class Moves cover a short list of special things you can do. In Dungeon World, when you attempt something that needs a roll, 80% of the time you describe what you want to do and then figure out the relevant rule, rather than the rules determining your actions.
When you level up, you just bump one of the core six attribute by a single point and select a new move. This sounds excessively simple, but the moves are quite varied and really expand your character's options. I am playing a Barbarian and could, for example, select a move that allowed to me break free from any restraint (physical or mental), though with some caveats. Or, I could take an ability allowing me to sacrifice to the old gods for knowledge. Or an ability allowing me to shrug off a blow, but at the cost of a continious penalty to other actions.
While this may sound like your standard RPG fare (i.e., how is this special?), everything about my character is written on a 2-page character sheet, including every class move I could ever gain. In my current group (made up of GM, Fighter, Barbarian (me), Templar and Wizard), we have yet to have to look up anything in the actual book - everything we needed to accomplish exactly the same style of play that OD&D offered was written on our sheet or on the single A4 page we printed out that describe basic and special moves.
Here's my empty character sheet before I started writing on it, along with the moves pages - i.e. the entirety of the 4 pages I have needed to consult so far:
Those 4 pages have lasted me over the course of three sessions now, and while I'm sure there's gonna be a point where I need to look something up, 4 pages over three sessions is quite remarkable. Especially considering the complexity of gameplay we've actually been experiencing.
Despite initial concern that these simple rules would hinder our experience in terms of this feeling like actually playing OD&D, Dungeon World hits the nail so heftily on its head that I'd say playing it is like experiencing what the creators of D&D - Gygax included - always intended the game to feel like. Everything here just works: exploration, combat, disarming traps, stealing, loot, communing with eldritch entities, getting lost in dungeons, and, well, role-playing, is tied to the same basic system, but leaning heavily on player creativity means you don't feel constrained or lacking options. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yet the game is still tied strongly enough to actual rules, roles and set abilities that you don't feel like you're just making everything up as you go along either.
If I had to voice any criticism, it's that the XP system is a bit weird and weapon tags and types are too vague.
At a price of just 10 bucks though, I really recommend it to anyone who like oldschool Dungeon Crawling. The one thing it won't give you though - fair warning - is a million splatbooks with items, prestige classes, tables for randomization of your campaign and so forth. It's as much a step in the "freeform" direction as 3.5 and 4th edition was a step in the "rules-heavy" direction, so if you need your magic weapon to come from a set treasure list upon defeating a Black Dragon, Dungeon World won't be for you.
However, when coupled with my love of rules-heavy systems such as Pathfinder, my distaste for AD&D often gets misinterpreted as a dislike for the style of roleplaying common back then - a style where the focus was on player inventiveness, interaction and group co-creation rather than everything being defined by a vast amount of gamified rules. To the degree that I do sympathise with OD&D fans' criticism of modern D&D (despite disagreeing vehemently with their defense of the actual AD&D system), it's that I agree that the success of 3rd edition kind of smashed most of the mainstream systems development for this older style of playing.
So it's not that I don't like playing these more player-driven, open-ended games, it's just that I never felt AD&D really facilitated that style of roleplaying very well. When AD&D worked it didn't feel much like it was the actual rules doing the heavy lifting - it was the players.
But recently I finally found a system that really pulls of the OD&D style of roleplaying excellently in my opinion:
Dungeon World is quite brilliant. It bases everything from character customization to combat and exploration around a very simple set of basic rules that combine oldschool D&D tropes with some ingenious ways of facilitating player description of actions as being the driving force behind interactivity rather than just what you've written on your character sheet. Basically, a short list of "Basic Moves" covers pretty much the bulk of what might require a roll in the game, and Class Moves cover a short list of special things you can do. In Dungeon World, when you attempt something that needs a roll, 80% of the time you describe what you want to do and then figure out the relevant rule, rather than the rules determining your actions.
When you level up, you just bump one of the core six attribute by a single point and select a new move. This sounds excessively simple, but the moves are quite varied and really expand your character's options. I am playing a Barbarian and could, for example, select a move that allowed to me break free from any restraint (physical or mental), though with some caveats. Or, I could take an ability allowing me to sacrifice to the old gods for knowledge. Or an ability allowing me to shrug off a blow, but at the cost of a continious penalty to other actions.
While this may sound like your standard RPG fare (i.e., how is this special?), everything about my character is written on a 2-page character sheet, including every class move I could ever gain. In my current group (made up of GM, Fighter, Barbarian (me), Templar and Wizard), we have yet to have to look up anything in the actual book - everything we needed to accomplish exactly the same style of play that OD&D offered was written on our sheet or on the single A4 page we printed out that describe basic and special moves.
Here's my empty character sheet before I started writing on it, along with the moves pages - i.e. the entirety of the 4 pages I have needed to consult so far:
Despite initial concern that these simple rules would hinder our experience in terms of this feeling like actually playing OD&D, Dungeon World hits the nail so heftily on its head that I'd say playing it is like experiencing what the creators of D&D - Gygax included - always intended the game to feel like. Everything here just works: exploration, combat, disarming traps, stealing, loot, communing with eldritch entities, getting lost in dungeons, and, well, role-playing, is tied to the same basic system, but leaning heavily on player creativity means you don't feel constrained or lacking options. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yet the game is still tied strongly enough to actual rules, roles and set abilities that you don't feel like you're just making everything up as you go along either.
If I had to voice any criticism, it's that the XP system is a bit weird and weapon tags and types are too vague.
At a price of just 10 bucks though, I really recommend it to anyone who like oldschool Dungeon Crawling. The one thing it won't give you though - fair warning - is a million splatbooks with items, prestige classes, tables for randomization of your campaign and so forth. It's as much a step in the "freeform" direction as 3.5 and 4th edition was a step in the "rules-heavy" direction, so if you need your magic weapon to come from a set treasure list upon defeating a Black Dragon, Dungeon World won't be for you.
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