Level Up Advanced 5E

Level Up Advanced 5E rewrote the SRD before the OGL debacle even was a thing. They rebuilt the game for community feedback, creating an adventure-compatible version of 5E that feels solid and supports the three pillars of play (combat, social, and exploration). Everything has been rethought through and redesigned from the ground up.

So this game was OGL-exempt because they rewrote everything as their own IP, then they licensed it out under three licenses (OGL, ORC, and CC-BY). That took an amazing amount of foresight, and it set them up well when everyone else was scrambling to remove the OGL from their games.

This game is sort of like Nimble 5e, a re-interpretation of 5E that does its own thing, but remains math-compatible for adventure support. Subclass compatibility is not recommended here, which is why ToV is the stronger choice for that type of 3rd party material.

What I like about Level Up A5E is that, since they rebuilt the game with extensive community feedback, it has many fixes inspired by old-school play, such as exploration being a core system, death mattering, and the removal of many of the 2014 annoyances and exploits. Of the three games we have considered, A5E has the most old-school DNA built into the system.

Martial classes are the best here, with combat maneuvers costing a stamina resource, and martial classes collecting and mastering new abilities as they level. This keeps them apart from caster-classes design-wise, but gives them cool powers they can use for resource management.

Rangers are similarly redesigned and can learn survival skills and become specialized in different survival techniques. This adds to the record-keeping and complexity of the game, but if you are deep into modding 2014 5E, you will find a lot to love here. You need rangers for wilderness adventures, and they do so many cool things.

The wilderness exploration game here is the best out of any version of 5E ever written, and actually beats the BX wilderness game in many areas. If you love survival-based games combined with 5E, you will find an excellent home here. The combat is also highly rated, with many options open to martial characters, making a strong core of non-caster class abilities and depth.

The backgrounds have the special game built into them, and also provide an amazing amount of interplay with the world, with those backgrounds able to "level up" and provide new bonuses and perks. Are you a soldier? Someday, you may earn the right to be able to call up a small force of soldiers yourself, be called upon for emergencies, and be given special missions by those you know.

Of all the 5E games, Level Up A5E has the best old-school feeling, since a lot of the feedback was from old-school players who wanted more of that in the game. Yes, this is still 5E, but it feels more like a heavily modded, deadly, and advanced version of the rules than anything else out there. If D&D 2024 is "BX 5E" then Level Up A5E is more like "AD&D 5E."

The six-level fatigue system was split into mental and physical tracks, which reduces its impact on combat effectiveness and makes it more usable and thematic. This is a step up from 2014 D&D and ToV, and on par with D&D 2024's ten-level straight modifier system. I can see how D&D 2024's ten-level system, past a -4 modifier, is equal to 2014's "one level and we are hosed" system.

Compared with D&D 2024? Level Up feels equal. While D&D 2024 is focused on streamlining and speed of play, Level Up A5E is more focused on creating depth in every subsystem, complicating the game while adding structural value through those additions and expansions. They go in opposite directions, with D&D 2024 being simpler and A5E being far more in-depth.

Every monster except orcs is in the Monsterous Menagerie. Orcs are now a core race, so they are excluded and use character classes as their "monster types," just like elves or dwarves. It is an alright change, one that fits the game's lore, but I still miss the Orc entry.

It is not like I don't have them in D&D 2014, and those port right in.

Here, Orcs are more their "World of Warcraft" style inspirations (early WoW, not today's jokey Orcs), so they get a bit more recognition and respect, and possibly their own kingdoms and holdings of lands with tribal infighting and politics. I actually do not mind that and see it as a strong point for the game, if you are going to pull Orcs out of the Monster Manual, make them equals in the strength of lore and the worlds. This is something Faerun and Greyhawk still ignore for the most part, and these races should be stronger in lore and the world's history, with their own lands, subfactions, conflicts, and history.

And no, these are not the silly Tex-Mex Orcs out of D&D 2024. What were they thinking?

While Level Up is still 5E, this game feels more old-school in spirit, and there isn't much I would want to change to make it feel that way. Death matters here, and even dropping to zero hit points has a cost. A lot of the rules incorporated are early D&D 2014 houserules, when old-school players still loved 5E, and that culture of play was trying to find a home in 5E before the Critical Role crowd took over, and the old-school players left for BX and 1E.

I can play Level Up with an old-school tone and feeling, not change any of the rules, and it automatically feels that way and works mechanically. Yet, the game is still 5E at heart, beating with the OG 2014 blood.

It is a unique, niche, and recommended game if you love the early days of 5E, before the drama and YouTube crowd, and when old-school play in 5E was still possible. Of all the games we talked about, Level Up Advanced 5E is the best old-school experience in 5E.

Level Up A5E is a niche game, but well worth your time.

The second best would be a tie between D&D 2024 and Tales of the Valiant. Both offer high ease of use and play improvements, and D&D 2024 reintroduces a wilderness exploration game. ToV does many things well and has a solid library of class designs that are on par with D&D's 2024 classes. ToV's support is better in many ways than D&D 2024's, and it is not tied to a live-service model. ToV will need a few extra books to support wilderness exploration, but the parts it needs are still here.

And D&D 2014 would take last place with its six corebooks and lack of a wilderness exploration game. While some of the patches make this a better game, the amount of books and patching needed drag this down.

Structured Play Pitfalls

If you are the average D&D player, you have been trained by structured play in two truths:

• D&D is there to tell your story
• D&D must have structured and balanced encounters

These assumptions will get your character, and quite likely the entire party, killed in old-school play.

The wandering monster table does not care about throwing multiple very hard encounters at you, the longer you stay in that hole in the ground. You could roll badly for wandering monsters three times in a row, get overwhelmed, and the entire party is killed in a span of an hour.

The "environmental simulation system" of old-school play and BX does not care one bit about "your story" or "encounter balance." The world is rigged against you. You are always meant to die. The thrill is figuring out how not to.

Wizards of the Coast loves the facade of balanced encounters and story adventures, since these make for better new-player experiences. Players should feel thrilled that they went through a dungeon, completed the story of the adventure, advanced their personal stories, saved the day, and, in the end, "everybody wins." You look at the structure of any modern adventure, and it is 90% this.

Kobold Press and EN World work by this 5E assumption, too; you will find balanced encounters and a focus on narrative play in those systems as well. You cannot escape this, and you assume it is the norm.

Old-school play?

To heck with that, you are being dropped straight in the middle of a world simulator, and there are chances based on the time spent and the location you are in to encounter monsters. While the map may be keyed with monster listings, the world isn't, and you must get in, get out, manage scarce resources, find safe places, and survive long enough to head back to civilization and find a moment to rest.

All the while, wandering dungeon monsters and wilderness encounters are being rolled for. If the number on the table results in a TPK encounter, so be it. You decided to take this risk, go a little further out this time, explore one more room, and you paid the price.

This is not about a preset story, yours or the adventure's. If you are lucky enough to live that long, maybe you can tell another part of yours. A story is something that comes out of your efforts to explore the world and survive the chaos, and personal stories are something on top of that.

If you were ever into game modding, this is like taking Skyrim and adding all these "random world encounters" and "kingdom battle" mods into the game that introduces random groups on NPCs and monsters onto the map, and you can stumble into the middle of a fight where wolves are fighting with a caravan of traders, and you can choose to jump in, ignore them, or just watch and loot the bodies after the survivors move on. While you watch, a group of Nords or bandits could show up, and the fight could get huge and chaotic. Magic could be flying as you dodge random firebolts. The chaos could attract a dragon by the end of the fight.

Does this system care about CR and balance?

No. Not one bit. The world "is what it is."

BX and old-school play are the same way.

Thinking "this is the game about my story" and "the adventure should be balanced so we can complete its story" is something out of the artificial world of structured play. Encounters are not balanced here. You need to sneak past fights, play dirty, save resources, be clever, and learn when to turn tail and run. You need a retreat plan for when it falls apart, and an idea on who carries fallen friends who can't make it themselves. Your plan can't rely on one spell or person. You need to play smart and understand the world does not care about you or your story.

But the world can show kindness. You could roll a friendly reaction roll from a group of kobolds who take pity on you as you just ran out of a room after a bugbear killed your cleric and thief, and you are out of hit dice to rest and wondering what you are going to do. If you can speak their language and part with a little treasure, they may help you get your fallen comrades back, since they hate the bugbears, too, and they would be happy to fight a skirmishing retreat for you as long as you promise to kill the warren of bugbears when you return.

This is a dynamic encounter that the DM turns into a story on the spot; it's not "pre-written" into the adventure but happens organically through the dice, tables, world, and luck. These types of stories are better than pre-written character stories, the stories written into adventures, and anything an adventure writer could think up.

When you get back to town, the temple says they can't raise your friends, but they can summon a high-level vicar from the city who could, for a generous donation, and perhaps, a problem they may need help with...

After all that, and with your friends returned to the living (or not, with new characters created), you set out again, thinking about those bugbears. The survivors of that fight remember, and a plan is made to deal with this problem once and for all. And you can be sure those kobolds will be close by, watching or perhaps helping again.

None of this is your prewritten character story or the adventure's narrative. All of this happens organically through the world simulation engine. And you can have this in 5E, any version of it that you play, for free if you adopt an old-school method of play, and that "world simulation engine" mentality to DM-ing. Again, you do not need BX to do this. While BX will make the failure conditions harsher and more dire, 5E can play an old-school game just fine and be just as lethal and dangerous.

The belief that BX is some magical panacea to solve all your problems with D&D is not entirely accurate. You may try it and love it. You may try it, hop games again, and end up missing 5E. What BX can teach us is that matters, and that can be used in any of our games, is the lost art of how to play an old-school game. What we do is recreate the old-school playstyle and keep that independent from the rules.

That "sandbox engine" we used to have before AD&D 2nd Edition was replaced by narrative railroading and the video-game-like progression of D&D 3.0. Narrative games are easier to DM and sell adventures for; they will have a bigger audience, so there is a financial incentive to ship them. It is easy to sell a game with a predictable, reproducible, pregenerated experience that plays like a theme-park ride every time, for every group. It is insanely hard to ship a game that delivers compelling, easy-to-manage, sandbox play.

But once you learn, a new style of play and types of interactive worlds are open to you. Your creativity goes from slightly tweaking published adventures to building living worlds.

You can play an old-school game in your game of choice.

You do not need to change the game.

You just need to change the way you think about it.

Morale

Morale is a solid rule. This kept most OSR combats from becoming the modern "to the death" affair we saw starting in D&D 3 to 4, and it continued into 5E (where morale was an optional rule in the DMG). People play 5E like Diablo, where every monster in a room must be killed, and that is not old-school play. The OSR games were not like that, and if characters beat a side down hard and fast, they would flee, fight a retreat, or surrender.

This is when alignment came into play. Lawful characters would not kill those who surrendered.

Morale in BX was rated on a 2-12 scale, with 2 meaning the creature will not fight, and 12 being the creature will fight to the death (and never check morale). This was checked on a 2d6 roll; if the roll exceeded the morale number, they failed. The number could be adjusted by a few points up or down, depending on the situation.

"In general, morale is checked in critical combat situations. Two recommended times for morale checks are:

1. After a side's first death in combat (either monsters or characters).
2. When half the monsters have been incapacitated (killed, asleep due to magic, and so forth).

Monsters that successfully check morale twice will fight to the death."

-Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Moldvay edition, 1980, page B27

In 5E, we do have morale rules, as follows:

• D&D 2024: Fight of Flight, DC 10 Wisdown saving throw
• D&D 2014: Morale, DC 10 Wisdown saving throw
• ToV: Morale, DC 10 Wisdom Save (TOV GMG, p75)
• LU A5E: No morale system, relies on the bloodied condition and mental stress.

This is the first time Level Up A5E fails at a category, interesting. It is not all that hard to standardize on the DC 10 Wisdom save for all games, since they are pretty much the same. Morale in any 5E version will work just like BX when it is checked, and what happens on failure.

This will most likely make fights easier, since if the players can take out a substantial number of creatures, they may break, organize a fighting retreat, or surrender. This is usually balanced by wandering monsters, so don't worry about challenge; let the dice fall where they may.

Morale introduces complications and moral quandaries into the adventure. What do you do with prisoners? Do you let them go, with them possibly running off to tell others? Do you use your only rope to tie them up? Is it even ethical to leave goblins tied up in a dungeon full of monsters that can eat them? Do you lock them in a room and spike the door shut, using a spike and time, and making noise that could attract wandering monsters? Do you cast a sleep spell on them all and hope for the best?

This is why we had alignment.

The lawful paladin would never allow a chaotic thief to kill helpless prisoners (or sleeping creatures), so the system built in a simulation of morality, mixing roleplaying with tactical decisions that could affect survival.

It is easy to treat monsters as video game enemies; you simply kill them all, and they "poof." When monsters act with self-preservation in mind, it introduces a double layer of decisions into the game. Is how you are going about "clearing this dungeon" ethical and moral? And how do you handle the inevitable surrenders when you lack the resources, time, or people to address them?

BX did a lot for us, even though by today's standard, it was a simple game. The depth of ethical and moral choices it forced upon us during a session surprised us all, and brought out the best and worst in people we thought we knew. You don't get the raw, visceral reactions when playing online of seeing people's faces and body language as they make these choices. You do when you are in person.

Nothing is stopping us from implementing these morale rules in our 5E games; most games already have them, though they're mostly forgotten. Well, in our old-school 5E game, we adopt the classic BX systems and let them work their magic.

A Blog for Everyone

Why did I start a 5E blog?

This came to me after realizing that many OSR YouTubers were treating BX as a "solve every problem" game, leading people to believe that a rule system was the answer to why they had fallen out of love with roleplaying. This is the classic "game hopping" cycle that even I go through constantly, and if you are a reader of my main blog, you know how the winds change in my mind.

But something told me "BX is not the answer," but people were getting this wrong, at least a part of it. I had to ask myself, "Can I have BX-style play in ANY game I play?"

And the answer is yes, I can.

I just need to go back to BX, pick out the classic methods and procedures of play from that game, identify them, and show people how to use them in any game. Any game can play "like" BX. Is it as lethal and deadly if I use 5E? No and yes, it depends on how we play the game. There are TPKs in 5E, but in general, it is less lethal than a BX game, which has a higher default tension level.

But lethality aside, my 5E game can be played using a BX turn structure and feels just like an old-school game.

And I went out and got D&D 2024, even though I feel I don't need it, and wasn't positive about the changes they made. I am supporting the game for this blog so I can speak to those players. The fact that most of the in-store play in this area is D&D 2024 means in-person play is very strong, and it may be a VTT thing where the D&D 2024 softness is seen as the lock-in of D&D 2014 content on VTTs, which means many are hesitant to break what they built online in their digital libraries.

And yes, I will try to play D&D 2024. If I want in on those local games at the hobby store, to finally become real again and play with real people, I will learn the new game. I am not so much of an ideologue that I will refuse to try new things, and I can gloss over parts of the game I dislike or disagree with (such as the missing humanoids from the Monster Manual and some of the art).

And I play Tales of the Valiant, so that gets supported here, too. All versions of 5E, even 2014, are supported here. This is a big-tent site, and all versions of 5E are loved and supported, as long as the character-building we love is there, and they can be modded to support an old-school style of play.

And since this is still 5E, moving between versions of the game is super easy. The differences are minor, and when you look at the entirety of 5E, they are so compatible that they are all house-ruled versions of each other, with D&D 2014 as the source document. Even if you are mixing rules in your head between versions, it won't really matter too much, and your game will be fine.

Even the excellent Level Up Advanced 5E, a niche version of 2014 that just amazes me with how well designed the game is, and it goes in a new direction, supporting all pillars of play. That is supported here, too. This has so many old-school nods, and D&D 2024's support for the exploration pillar of play was likely influenced by this game. Those wilderness adventure rules did not come out of nowhere, and the lack of decent wilderness exploration rules in 2014 is a sore spot, leading people to think D&D was solely a tactical, dramatic combat game.

Level Up A5E is excellent, and I am still a fan.

And, yes, we also support the classic D&D 2014 game. I have friends who are so broke they can't afford new books, so why should we exclude them? If this is what you have and love, why are we excluding you? Welcome, 2014 players, and your six core books with all those rules patches. I love this version, too, classic, unbalanced, broken, double-casting, broken combos, but very OG cool.

Plenty of people still play patched and fixed versions of D&D 2014, and they are just as viable and playable as any alternatives.

What unites us is old-school play. We don't want to change games, like all the YouTubers are begging us to play BX and other games, because it would fix every problem we have with roleplaying, and we still want to be able to walk into a hobby store and play with others. While I love a great, tension-filled, harsh game of BX, the 5E players do not have to be excluded from that experience because they don't change their game.

We can adopt BX's core principles and apply them in 5E. Will our game be as deadly and tension-filled? Will we be playing by BX rules to the letter? No. I don't expect that out of this. But we will have an experience that is much closer to the heart of the game, instead of the narrative story game that modern D&D has wandered off into the narrative story gaming of YouTube live-play, and we love the classic, tension-filled, resource-tracking, players-make-the-map, absolute blast of classic D&D.

We can get pretty close to classic D&D by combining BX procedures with 5E rules. The rest we can houserule, and we don't lose the games we love, nor do we have to change systems.

The dungeon turn? Players making the map? The wilderness turn? Monster reactions? Morale? Interactive play that does not rely on skill rolls? Light and torch-tracking? Wandering monsters? Time tracking? Clearing hexes and building domains?

None of those are magically dependent on the BX rules.

I can port all those structures and procedures directly into 5E and end up with an old-school 5E game that feels much more authentic than a FATE-like narrative story game that uses the 5E rules. Those procedures and methods are universal truths that we should not forget, nor write out of the game.

We can still play 5E and have an authentic, old-school experience.

Will it be exactly the same? No.

The real game here is in the methods, structures, and procedures. This is our Rosetta Stone, our source of truth for roleplaying. The way we play is much more important than what we play. If we can preserve the old-school style in our play structure, any game we play will be more fun for us.

Yes, BX is amazing and fun. The OSR YouTubers are often right; that simple, deadly game is a classic.

But the way BX was played can enrich and enhance any game we play.

And to the BX YouTubers, you need to go beyond procedure and structure, and explain why the BX rules and math are better than 5E. The procedure and structure can be easily ported to 5E. I know what I love about BX, but consider this a challenge to go beyond the obvious and get deeper into the why.

It is easy to be negative.

It is much harder to be positive and constructive.

If I can help you find a fun way to play 5E, take this old-school style into a gaming store, and show a table of players there "the way" while still playing the store-preferred D&D 2024 game, then my work here has value and is worth the effort. If I can make the game more fun for you and keep you from burning out, then that is one less person who leaves the hobby. If it helps you see 5E in a new light, not as a game where "skills solve everything" and "wilderness is just a cut scene," then I will have helped open the door to you for new adventures.

You will still be playing D&D 2024. But you will be playing it exactly how we used to play the original. You get the best of both worlds. Your table may see the game in a new light. You will bring the magic back to the table and not shortcut or shorthand the procedures of play for expediency. There is a magic in these old, dusty tomes of BX D&D. Let me help you find it.

The way we played is an absolute truth.

What we play can change.

Tales of the Valiant

Tales of the Valiant is a patched 2014 version of 5E. A lot of the class designs are clear improvements over the 2014 versions. I can own PDFs, and the rules are cleaned up and a lot clearer. Overall, versus the six core books of D&D 2014, this is a solid alternative that cleans up the rules, reduces the number of books to support, and makes the game easier for beginners.

The major replacement is the Luck system in place of Inspiration, which works well in play and is preferred by many. That said, using this to play a more old-school 5E game has all the same issues as D&D 2014. Most of the optional rules from 2014 are here, and in some areas, such as travel, the rules are better thought out and explained, with expanded systems offered.

This is like a "product improved" version of D&D 2014, with mostly the same rules, a few clarifications and expansions, many fixes to classes and abilities, but for the most part, it is what you are used to in D&D 2014. There are play improvements here over the 2014 D&D edition that make the game easier to play, but the design goal is to mirror 2014 and provide complete compatibility.

I would rather play ToV than D&D 2014; it's not even a comparison. Of all the games I cover on this blog, ToV is the best version of D&D 2014, and it is still supported incredibly well today. This also has the best compatibility with D&D 2014 subclasses and third-party rules.

If you like D&D 2014, this is an obvious side-grade for you and a quality-of-life improvement. We are back down to three core books again, not six, so like D&D 2024, this is a better option for new players, but it does not have the structural improvements and streamlining that D&D 2024 does.

Note: Some criticize D&D 2024 as too streamlined and simplified, such as removing the silvered weapons needed for werewolves and other lycanthropes, and the experience from the game. There is a "dumbing down" to D&D 2024 that some 2014 players do not like. While I may view the streamlining as generally positive, some feel it went too far, removing classic interactions (and monster spellcasting) in favor of speed of play.

But ToV does do a few things much better than D&D 2024. One is in ability score creation: D&D 2024's backgrounds force you into taking a narrow selection of ability score improvements, plus a feat, and they limit your choices of optimal backgrounds based on your build. In ToV, they just set your stats during stat creation, and that is the last time you fool with them, and you can get the stats you want.

This whole thing of "going backward and modifying stats" in character creation is clunky and needs to be done away with. You set them once, calculate your modifiers one time, and move on to the next section. ToV gets it right.

The D&D 2014 model of the three core books plus three "expansion books" as the core game just needs to go away. I get it, 2014 is the most popular version ever, and it is 10 years entrenched, but I have had a group that never even started since I chose 2014 D&D, and people just wanted to have a simple core experience.

ToV or D&D 2024 would have been far better choices, needing only three core books, and I would have had a game going.

As for old-school rules, you are still sort of on your own with making tone changes or adapting an old-school mod to the rules from a third party. Some play old-school in 5E by adopting a grim and gritty tone; it doesn't always work, but it is a choice. When you are forced to play an old school game, such as Shadowdark or BX, you begin to understand how less is more, and that tension of every step being possibly your character's final.

Since this is 2014 compatible, Hardmode 5e works just as well. Again, you may want to hold off on using this until you learn the system. Some of the rules in here aren't needed, such as the Injuries system, since ToV provides its own by retaining the best Variant rules from D&D 2014.

Also, ToV and D&D 2024 are similar enough but different enough that you should not assume they work the same way. A lot doesn't, especially around action types and what can and can't be done on different actions. Monsters are vastly different: ToV supports classic monster abilities, while D&D 2024 heavily streamlines them.

There is a speed-of-play optimization in D&D 2024 that removes much of the classic flavor (such as werewolves, silver weapons, and caster monsters), leading some people to see the game as a "5E Lite" version. The designers of 2024 try different ways to make up for it, but the monsters feel and play differently. ToV keeps things in the classic, 2014 style.

Playing a certain way is going to be a common problem with games that stick closer to the D&D standard. Adopting an old-school feel and style of play will be harder since the games are not designed for that style, and modifying the rules will introduce a whole bunch of new problems with pacing and balance.

This is why people give up and play Shadowdark or BX. It is just easier to play a game and let it do what it was designed to do. And you don't need to push a huge list of homebrew changes on a new group, which can cause people to walk away. The game was written that way, and we can all play by what is in the book, fine. You come in with six pages of homebrew, and I will quit and find an easier game that doesn't need a day-one patch that is mostly opinion.

Don't laugh, this happened to me.

We have all the 2014 D&D monsters, including the humanoids, in the Monster Vault. Also note that ToV's monsters are tuned to hit harder than D&D 2014, so the game feels like a CR+1 game overall, and not really tuned to the 2014 math. At this point, D&D 2024 is tuned CR+1, and it feels like the industry has moved on from the 2014 balance and opted for a harder-hitting, faster style of play.

Level Up A5E retains the old 2014, CR+0 balance. It can be argued that by the end, D&D 2014 was also a CR+1 game, with all the power-gaming and exploits occurring in the later books.

Also note that speed-of-play improvements and changes to fatigue are not in ToV, as they are unique to 2024 D&D. A lot of what was done in D&D 2024 was done to make the game play faster, at the expense of some of the traditional tropes and expectations that hardcore players love. D&D 2024 is more like a "BX version of 2014 D&D" if that makes sense.

Tales of the Valiant is a solid side-grade for those with a huge library of 2014 books for D&D, looking to step away from Wizards and adopt a clean, fresh start using a reimagined set of core rulebooks. I do not need to wade through six core books to play; it is just one player's book, a bestiary, and a referee book.

Is it appropriate for old-school-style 5E play? Really, it isn't much more than 2014 D&D in that regard, but it does have the advantage of only needing three core books instead of D&D 2014's six. Your life will be easier here, but you will still be in 2014 without the streamlining of 2024 D&D. Also, all your 2014 5E books will be supported, including subclass compatibility, which is ToV's biggest selling point.

If that is exactly what you want, then this is your game.

I like ToV, I run a blog dedicated to the game, and it is a solid, amazing game. The 2014 edition is more compatible than D&D 2024's, and it has its own cleanups and streamlining that make the game easier to play.

Wandering Monsters

While the turn structure says wandering monsters are checked for at the beginning of the turn, this page (B53) says they are checked for at the end of the turn. In any case, this feels like they are checked between turns, and they apply to the following turn if encountered.

Besides the monsters which live in rooms, characters may encounter monsters which wander about the dungeon. These monsters are known as "Wandering Monsters". At the end of every 2 turns, the DM should check for Wandering Monsters. To do so, roll Id6: a result of 1 indicates that the party will encounter a Wandering Monster in the next turn. The Wandering Monster will be 20-120 feet away from the party when encountered (roll 2d6, multiply the result by 10) in a direction of the DM's choosing, and will be headed toward the player characters.

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Moldvay edition, 1980, page B53

So, every two turns, we roll 1d6 to check for wandering monsters. We can do this in 5E, but a part of the problem is that not all adventures, especially the story-based ones, have wandering monster tables. This is going to be a problem in D&D 2024, where Wizards moved away from wandering monster tables and instead list monsters by CR in the Monster Manual.

I just realized that some of these games, most notably D&D 2024, lack a 10-minute exploration turn. I will get to this in a later article, since this will be a problem.

You will need a 2014 DMG or the 2014 Xanathar book; ToV and A5E also have these tables, with A5E having the best implementation. If you are in 2024 and don't have a table, use the Monsters by CR lists in the 2024 DMG, and pick one that makes sense, or use those lists to make your own table, if you have time.

This is the first real stumble for D&D 2024 when it comes to old-school play, but it isn't a huge one if the adventure has the tables, or you have access to another book. Most adventures have them, and those may work for you as well, or you can use an online tool.

The dungeon may have certain areas where Wandering Monsters are encountered more often (such as on a roll of 1 or 2). The dungeon may have areas where the DM checks for Wandering Monsters every turn, or where a monster will appear when a corridor is entered. Wandering Monsters should appear more often if the party is making a lot of noise or light, but should not be frequent if the party spends a long time in one out-of-the-way place (if they stop in a room for the night, for example).

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Moldvay edition, 1980, page B53

Okay, hold up! This is something that I do not see on the YouTube channels that push BX. The original rules mention that wandering monsters can be rolled for:

• Every turn
• At a higher chance (1 to 2 on a d6)
• Automatically, when entering a certain area
• At higher chances or frequency, depending on party activity

So, that bard playing music, the fireball exploding, or the dwarf running in full plate mail? Yep, you are going to up your chance of wandering monsters. There may be a "central hallway" where the chance is 1-3 on a d6 every two turns, or every turn. There may be a giant ant burrow where ants will always appear when characters come close (unless you toss a fireball in there). There may be a kobold warren where it is checked every turn.

There may be places where it is checked less frequently, such as once every three turns, once an hour, or longer. This is what a DM did in an old-school game. We called things as we saw them, and tweaked our sandbox to surprise the players and the DM.

And yes, resting in the dungeon was even mentioned back in 1980, which is more appropriate for a remote cave where nothing creeps by than it is a closet in an occupied Orc fortress. Still, if you attempt this, you'd better have a plan for who is on lookout and when, and make sure it is laid out with the DM before you even try. I may still check every two hours, just to see if something comes up for you.

And remember to choose a reaction or roll it randomly! Maybe that giant spider in the cave crawls in silently and snuggles up next to you while you are sleeping for body warmth. I will require a saving throw when you wake up, so as not to scream at Fluffy.

Note: Lots of wandering monsters will affect adventure balance! This is old-school sandbox play, and it is the ticking clock that punishes those who waste time in the dungeon. Every two turns, you roll. If a monster shows up, you choose or roll a reaction. This will, by default, make things harder. You may not survive, so you'd better have a plan to get in and get out, especially when you are slowed down carrying treasure back to the dungeon entrance.

And all of this can be done in 5E, whichever version you love. This is not exclusive to BX, and since Dungeons & Dragons started with these rules, we can use them as-is in our 5E games to add some old-school flavor.

We don't have to change our games to have epic wandering monster encounters and make them feel more old-school and cool. We can keep playing 5E, adopt these rules, and have an old-school game with the rules we love.

Monster Reactions

When any monster is encountered, wandering or room-keyed, you must roll Monster Reactions. You can always choose the reaction, but rolling is the way to do it if you don't feel like choosing the reaction.

MONSTER ACTIONS: Some monsters always act in the same way (such as zombies, who always attack). However, the reactions of most monsters are not always the same. The DM can always choose the monster's reactions to fit the dungeon, but if he decides not to do this, a DM may use the reaction table below to determine the monster's reactions (roll 2d6).

Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Moldvay edition, 1980, page B24

And the 2d6 table works like this:

  2      Immediate attack

3-5     Hostile, possible attack

6-8     Uncertain, monster confused

9-11   No attack, monster leaves or considers offers

 12     Enthusiastic friendship

So, 28% of the time, monsters attack or are hostile. If you draw steel, they attack. Remember, a 3-5 is still a possible attack; they are hostile, but there is a chance of negotiation. The other 72% of the time? Well, they will attack if attacked, but they are either indifferent, confused, or would consider teaming up with you 3% of the time.

On any of these, they will attack if you start swinging swords and flinging spells. Remember, the DM can choose anything from attack to friendly, and common sense applies! If the characters were killing orcs throughout the entire fort, it is highly unlikely that any of the ones left would be that friendly, unless they were prisoners from another tribe or so unhappy with the warchief that they just want a chance to get out of there alive. If they are part of the warchief's elite guards, they will attack 99% of the time.

Roll anyway to see if something interesting comes up, and then decide if it makes sense.

This table is another key part of old-school play, and you do not need to switch rule systems to use it. Yes, playing BX is cool, but we don't need to change the game we are playing in to make it feel more old-school! If we like it, we can keep it. The book says "Dungeons & Dragons" on the cover, so don't feel bad about adopting this as an optional rule for your 5E games.

Note, the Monster Reactions table will likely mess with published adventures, overall making them easier since not all encounters will be fights, unless you choose them to be fights. You may see the party getting an unxelected ally of the ogre in room 8, and he follows along and smashes the rest of the monsters in the dungeon he is finally sick of, and the party on his side finally gives him the bravery to say "enough is enough" and take revenge for the abuse he has endured over the years. That extra help from the party is going to trash the rest of the encounters on this level, but wow, what a cool story.

Why are you missing out on this gameplay? This happened all the time back in the day, and it's partly why BX is considered a legendary game. You can do this in whatever version of 5E you love, and there is no need to get your table to switch games.

As for that ogre making things too easy, this is another thing the old-school DM does. You may want to up the challenge in a later room, and you may want a reason for the ogre to walk away and head to the hills after they leave the dungeon. The town likely won't accept an ogre, and he will need to return to his tribe. Maybe he walks away in a bittersweet moment, and perhaps he could show up again in some later adventure as a surprise friend to help out in a time of need.

Again, this stuff happened all the time in old-school games. The game wasn't just "characters and combat" but a mini-sandbox game the DM could have fun with. We had rules like this to surprise even the DM, and this emergent gameplay can be directly dropped into your 5E game.

Just use this rule; it makes your 5E game feel more old-school and is fun!

The Dungeon Turn

We want the classic Dungeon Turn in our old-school 5E game and to follow this structure during play. This will go a long way towards making our 5E game feel like a BX game, and while I know a turn structure can't get us there on its own, it will help with everything else we try to do. What is the Dungeon Turn?

1. The DM rolls for Wandering Monsters (1-in-6) every second turn.
2. The party moves, listens, and searches for 10 minutes of time.
3. If monsters are not encountered, the turn ends; otherwise, roll reaction. Combat may occur.
4. The party tracks resources, including:
1. Marching order changes
2. Encumbrance and changes in possessions
3. Mark off a turn on all light sources
4. Check spell duration
5. The party decides its course of action for the next turn.

That is it! Do not overcomplicate this, and you do not need a 200-page book from Amazon to tell you how to play an old-school game. It is essentially a wandering monster check, an action phase, then wandering monsters arrive, a resource phase, and a planning phase for the next turn.

Note the sequencing! Just because you enter a room on phase 2 and encounter the room's keyed contents does not exempt you from the results of a wandering monster check! You could get into a fight with the orcs, and the wandering monsters (carrion crawlers) could enter the fight, attracted by the noise, and attack both sides!

Also note, both the orcs in room 2 and the carrion crawlers will roll separate reaction rolls! They could both react positively, with the orcs wanting to negotiate, and the carrion crawlers wandering by and looking for food. The orcs could be friendly and the carrion crawlers hostile, and you could fight them together.

Also, note that we are not changing one rule in whatever version of 5E you play to get our game a long way towards feeling old-school and cool. We are making a simple change to adopt an old-school style of play and turn structure, while keeping our 5E game exactly as it is. All our character builds are intact. All our favorite moves and combos are still there. Resting has not been touched. We have not changed the death rules or even touched pop-up healing.

Everything in our 5E game remains the same, and our game has improved by 100% in tone and feel.

Resources are being tracked. Time is important. Movement speed and encumbrance should matter. Light is critical. Being punctual will keep you all alive.

Also note how this automatically balances the short rest. Taking an hour for a breather forces three wandering monster checks, a 1-in-6 chance every second turn (20 minutes). This is three 1-in-6 rolls, which comes out to a 42% chance of encountering a wandering monster during that hour, and if this turns into a fight, the short rest is ruined.

So short rests fail and mean an extra combat almost 50% of the time?

Those are now balanced, given they also burn up a torch.

While this does not give us the full BX or Shadowdark experience, this takes a "loosey gooesy" 5E narrative game and turns it into a tense, structured, old-school experience quite nicely.

And we did not need to change game systems.

Nor did we need to change the rules of the game.

D&D 2014 and D&D 2024

D&D 2014 includes more variant rules to support old school play than people give the game credit for. Very few seem to use them, since I never really see them discussed. The truth is, both D&D 2014 and 2024 can run a game that feels more old-school, but you will run into a few problems with either edition. You will likely require a lot of patching and homebrew to make this work.

The variant rules in the DMG for the following are very useful:

• Healer's Kit Dependency
• Rest Variants: Gritty Realism (see notes below)
• Injuries
• Massive Damage
• Morale

I swear, some OSR YouTubers forget there is a morale rule written into the 2014 DMG. Note that most of the Variant rules above were removed from D&D 2024. Morale was integrated into the "fight or flight" rules in the 2024 DMG. There are morale rules in all versions of D&D 5E and 5.5E.

Also, 2014 is a heavily patched game at this point, requiring a few extra books to work correctly and be up to the latest "patched" version of 2014 5E. The advantage of 2024 is that it is only the three core books, and that is it. Oh, and don't fall for the digital DLC trap; if it isn't in a physical book, it isn't real.

But the longer rest variants were removed in D&D 2024, leaving us significantly worse off. Yes, you can houserule them in, but as 2014 fades, 2024 will be the official books and supported rules going forward. 

Then again, the Gritty Realism Variant rules did significantly slow game pacing and hurt classes that relied on short rests by forcing them to last 8 hours. While they did force a more old-school mentality, I can see why many did not use them since they slowed the pace of adventuring to a crawl. Many said good riddance to these rules, since they never worked all that well without heavy patching.

You fight the system and its balance, trying to make it work like an old-school game. Where 2014 threw a bunch of "hey DM, try this" rules in the DMG that never worked that well, D&D 2024 gets rid of them and streamlines the game. Honestly, 2024 plus homebrew rules are probably the better way to go, since the game is streamlined, with less confusion and fewer exploitable rules overall.

Some turn to third-party supplements to get the old-school rules and feeling in place for the game. Some of these are massive rewrites, while others are more targeted with thoughtful options. 5e Hardmode is one of my favorites, giving you a bunch of optional rules you can use that feel better thought out than the Variant rules presented in the 2014 DMG. This will work seamlessly with either 2014 or 2024 D&D.

But, the game as it is, is still D&D 5E at its heart. You can adjust resource replenishment, which is what hardmode 5e attempts to do, but you will still run into the same issues Gritty Realism ran into. Part of me feels this book is good, and another feels it would cause problems and "just play 5.5E and use tone" - it is a tricky problem.

It is probably better to not use this and learn 5.5E on its own without modding it. There are enough differences to learn, and the streamlining that 2024 brought makes this a new system; it is farther from 5E than one may think.

Either version of D&D (2014 or 2024) plus the 5e Hardmode rules will get you there. This is probably the easiest way to go about this, and you can pick as many optional rules as you like to make things work for you.

The 2024 wilderness exploration rules were massively rewritten and expanded, and can no longer be ignored by ranger characters. This is a clear improvement over D&D 2014, and it makes the game better for old-school-style play. I can see why they got rid of the ranger's "soft powers" in D&D 2024 now, since the entire wilderness exploration system has changed.

The exhaustion rules in 2024 are better than those in 2014, and more usable during play than the harsher 6-level system. ToV and A5E still retain the old exhaustion systems, though A5E splits them into six levels of Fatigue and Strife, and each is less harsh. ToV sticks with 2014's table and is in the same boat with exhaustion, with many groups not using it because of how harsh it hits characters.

The darkvision problem was also addressed in 2024, and light sources are more important. Equipment use overall is cleaned up and cleared up in 2024, requiring certain pieces of gear for travel challenges and laying out which tools give an advantage for which travel activities.

2014 had popular variant encumbrance rules, whereas 2024 simplifies encumbrance and reserves it for edge cases. It is a wash either way, with 2014 holding the edge due to the variant rules.

Also, please get the 5.5E Monster Manual Expanded to fill in the missing monsters from the 2024 Monster Manual. You will get the orcs, drow, and humanoid monsters back. I knew this would eventually happen, but it does add to the cost of the game and adds another book to the shelf.

Given the criteria we set out, D&D 2024 plus Hardmode 5e is your best bet for simulating an old-school game using the D&D rules. The changes to darkvision, the equipment-use clarifications, and the wilderness exploration rule expansion push this over the top for me. Also, to have the "full game" of 2014, it is more than just the three core books, since major rules changes were introduced in later books.

The fact that 2024 beat 2014 actually shocked me, but now that I own the books, everything is a lot clearer. The nods to the old-school style of play are more evident in 2024 than in 2014; fewer books are needed (no Tasha's, Xanathar's, or Monsters of the Multiverse as core books), and you do not need to houserule this to make it work as intended. But people love houseruling, so there is that.

It is also sad that 2024 is generally an improvement over 2014; many skipped these books out of anger at Wizards over issues like the OGL, and the edition is seen as a disappointment. Some sensitivity issues crept in here as well, such as humanoid monsters going missing from the Monster Manual, and a few of the art pieces feel off. Conversion rates remain low, and many are playing with what they have in a tough economy.

What is Old School 5E?

What is Old School 5E? Well, one game begins the discussion, and that is the excellent Shadowdark from the Arcane Library. Is this game "Old School 5E"?

I need to define what I mean by 5E first. I feel the heart of 5E is not the d20 resolution system, nor is it an advantage-and-disadvantage dicing system. Nor is it in the stat rack or rolling damage on polyhedral dice. Otherwise, most of BX is 5E.

To me, 5E is the character build system. This is what people play for, why they show up at the table, and the part of the game that they play without needing a referee or an active game at the table. This is what Tales of the Valiant and Level Up A5E try to redesign with their implementations of the core rules.

The character build system is the holy grail of 5E.

Tales of Aragosa will come up in this discussion, too, since it is a 5E-like system without the comprehensive build system that real 5E needs to be compelling. This system is a refinement of the excellent Low Fantasy Gaming and remains an excellent system for low-powered 5E.

Shadowdark rewards clever play and risk management (lights, expendable items, and managing inventory space). You may need to drop that 10' pole to pick up that bag of gold. That decision may be a life-and-death one.

5E rewards character optimization and resource management (resting). 5E has a video-game power-replenishment feel built in, and in most implementations of 5E, inventory management is deemphasized. This will be a problem for us in the final set of rules we pick for Old School 5E, and we will need to find a 5E implementation that does a better job at making inventory and encumbrance important.

5E also has exponential power progression, whereas Shadowdark and Aragosa are more linear. This is another requirement for Old School 5E: we must meet the player expectations for a "5E" experience.

• We need character building
• We need the power curve
• We need the full 5E experience

So this gives us a few options:

• D&D 2014
• D&D 2024
• Level Up Advanced 5E
• Tales of the Valiant

So how do we judge these? We need a criterion to pick and choose them on; otherwise, it is just your dungeon game of choice. We need to go back to the original source and pick out some things to look for.

For that, we will use BX D&D, the classic, and figure out what we are looking for in our mythical "Old School D&D." We need our 5E game to closely align with where the challenges are in BX D&D, without just playing BX D&D. We want 5E to be as close to the challenge, resource management, and gameplay loops we find in BX. The closer we can get to BX, the better of an Old School 5E we will have.

We also need to take the Expert Set into account, since we want exploration to be supported. So, on a rough first draft, what are we looking for?

• Lethality
• Serious Injury and Death
• Balanced Rest and Recovery
• Realistic Healing
• Exploits Addressed
• Inventory Management:
• Encumbrance
• Consumable Items
• Items Used in Exploration
• Meaningful Treasure (at a cost)
• Turn-Based Play:
• Dungeon Turns
• Wandering Monsters
• Light and Vision
• Interactive Gameplay
• Wilderness Gameplay
• Wilderness Turns
• Survival Mechanics
• Food, Shelter, and Weather
• Wilderness Encounters

So we have a few areas we want to judge each game on, since these are the big reasons to play BX. We want to see whether they can be "ported in" to our favorite version of 5E, or whether our favorite version of 5E already includes these as a rule option. We could mod the rules from a 3rd-party supplement, but we want to be fair and see how many options each game comes with on its own, to reduce the number of books we need to support.

We do not want to go into this and have the same old exploits used in our games: pop-up healing, the lack of death in the game, goodberries being all the food you need, and the unserious nature that many games fall into. If a game has rampant exploitation of these rules oversights, then it will score poorly on our criteria list, which means D&D 2014 will likely start out at a massive disadvantage. But we will be fair and give it a chance, since optional rules could fix things, if they are present. If a game lacks rules in an entire area, such as exploration and wilderness rules, it will also score poorly.

Also note that Shadowdark earns an almost-perfect rating across all these categories (except wilderness), as well as under the original BX rules (which are perfect across the board). Aragosa also rates very highly in these categories.

But our job here is to find a version of 5E that preserves as much of the old-school methodology as possible, while keeping the character build system, progression, and power level intact.

BX will be our guidepost, but 5E will be the road we travel.

Hello World!

 First post!