This is what we want our 5E game to feel like. The 1980 version of the game. We want the strict turn order (B23), party roles (B19), mapping, caller, combat sequence (B24), and all the advice in the "Dungeon Mastering as a Fine Art" section (B60) to apply. We want the wilderness turn order structure (X23) to apply outside the dungeons. We want hirelings, specialists, and mercenaries. We want castles, construction, and sieges. We want to explore hexes and clear them of monsters and lairs. We want to get lost in the wilderness and underground, and for the maps to matter again.
We want to capture the best parts of these books while staying in 5E.
"In the D&D rules, individuals play the role of characters in a fantasy world where magic is real and heroes venture out on dangerous quests in search of fame and fortune. Characters gain experience by overcoming perils and recovering treasures. As characters gain experience, they grow in power and ability."
Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Moldvay edition, 1980, page B3
That statement still holds true in 5E. I feel the designers have forgotten about these simple words and this powerful statement, and everywhere the modern version of the game goes wrong can be traced back to forgetting what these words meant.
Many players get tired of 5E and just return to these games. I don't blame them. After "falling out of reality," the rules of 5E begin to fight with logic and common sense, and all of a sudden, the "fake game world" begins to seem more like a video-game reality than something grounded in the real world. The rules of the game matter more than logic, and they become a "fake logic" under which the world operates.
You get tired of that, and it wears on your psyche.
It is like an MMO that feels like a wondrous, fresh, unbounded world when you first enter it, and six months later, knowing how the world really works makes it feel like a tiny, small, constricting space where you have no freedom and must obey the fake systems and rules to progress a fraction of a percent today.
I want an old-school feeling and game, but I want to stay in 5E. Why do we have to give up one for the other? Part of this is the jaded masses, the optimizers who tell us there is one true build to maximize damage, and that the world does not exist, only the rules. This is why the rules were simple back in the day: there wasn't much to your character sheet, and you could not escape the world through the rules. You were a fighter with 41 hit points and a THAC0 score, six ability scores, and that was it.
Figure out the rest from the referee's descriptions, and you can't interact with the world by saying you make a skill roll. And there weren't any skills, so you can't lean on them to do everything for you either.
D&D 5E has gotten lazy and tired in its old age. It makes the original game look fresh and new by forcing people to interact with the environment without a character sheet.
But we have to stop.
We need to ask ourselves, "What do we want?"
Especially in terms of the mythical old-school game. Is what we want a dungeon turn structure, resource expenditure, time tracking, light sources, interactive environment (sand skill rolls), and regular wandering monster check? Do we want the same thing for wilderness exploration turns? Do we want the players to draw the maps? If so, I can just set those as house rules and have it all in 5E.
A 1-in-6 wandering monster check every 20 minutes? A short rest is one hour? Fine, that comes out to a 42% chance of your short rest being ruined by wandering monsters every time you pull that in a dungeon. And you burn another hour of light, mark the torches off. Medical supplies, if anyone is healing. Rations if you have halflings. You don't have the supplies, so there's no healing and eating, and the halfling is gaining a fatigue level.
I can be hard on the resource and time tracking, no problem. I don't need BX for that.
The 5E players who think this is Diablo will complain that I am "dragging things out," but let them complain. They will moan about "needing to track stupid supplies and weight" and "being forced to go shopping," but those are very old-school things we used to enjoy. Do you have iron spikes and a hammer? Well, no jamming the door shut. Those things have uses, and you are not taking a short rest while being chased. Equipment in the old days used to have superpowers, but that was forgotten in newer games in favor of a character-centric approach.
The appeal of BX is its reduced focus on the character sheet as the solution to every problem. You can't cover your eyes and "skill check" your way through the world. You can't regain powers with a magical short rest and be all ready to fight at full strength. Magic can't solve every problem. The action economy won't save you.
I can fix that in 5E, too.
Skill checks are dependent on interaction with the world and roleplay. If I ever hear "I search the room," you are automatically rolling on a disadvantage, or I will make you automatically fail and stumble into a trap. Searching how? For what? Where? Looking for what? Are you being careful? You don't tell me what you are doing; you will likely fail. Same thing with "I roll persuasion." That stupid look on your face while you stand there silent isn't going to convince anybody of anything.
Give me a great plan or a masterful speech, then you may roll with advantage, and you may never need to roll in the first place. I will just give it to you.
Skill rolls require player effort.
That's the deal.
Yeah, there is a way to do all this in 5E without switching to BX. The interactivity can be the same or better in 5E. So we have a turn structure and interactivity? We can have mapping, too? This is 80% of the way there, with the final 20% being lethality.
And lethality is highly dependent on which rule system you pick, or what houserules you choose. Lethality is an easier problem to solve. So, we are about 80% of the way there, just in changing a few things about how we play, and slowing things down a little with structure.
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