D&D General Do You D&D OSR?

Aldarc said:

Have you looked into Worlds Without Number? It is a three class + hybrid class system, but it also features essentially skills, feats, and optional subclass/alternate class options.

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I actually looked at Stars without Numbers for a space RPG that never quite got put together

Remathilis said:

I actually looked at Stars without Numbers for a space RPG that never quite got put together

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It's a great game, with the best worldbuilding rules I have ever seen in a TTRPG (tied with Worlds Without Number, of course).

Remathilis said:

I actually looked at Stars without Numbers for a space RPG that never quite got put together

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The basic version of WWN is also free on DTRPG. This comes with the Warrior, Expert, and Mage.

Additionally, the Mage gets magical traditions, which are like subclasses. These traditions come with various "arts" that they can choose from, which are like talents or feats. However, Mages have the option of either going Full Tradition or even Partial Tradition/Partial Tradition. The Warrior/Expert + Mage version of the Adventurer (the general dual-class class) can pick up a Partial magic tradition.

• High Magic (wizard)
• Elementalist
• Healer
• Necromancer
• Vowed (monk)

You can use this system to create mix-and-match characters like a Healer/Necromancer, a Warrior/High Mage, an Expert/Healer, Warrior/Vowed, or the super fun Warrior/Necromancer.

If you get the full version of the book/pdf, there are additional player options towards the end in the "Arts of the Gyre" section. Most only exist as Partial mage traditions, so you can only hybridize with the latter.

• Invoker (full or partial): i.e., the spontaneous casting sorcerer
• Skinshifter (partial only): a shapeshifter
• Duelist (partial only): a swashbuckling swordsman*
• Beastmaster (partial only): it's your pet subclass
• Blood Priest (partial only): more traditional cleric performing miracles, smiting, etc.**
• Thought Noble (partial only): psionics

There are also additional rules in the full version for more "Heroic" characters. These rules supplement or replace class abilities. These options will make characters hardier and more powerful. So this is better if you like the rules but don't necessarily want OSR "lethality."

* The Duelist has an interesting sidebar that lets us know the design philosophy of this choice as well as the general design philosophy of classes:

Making Magical Warriors and Experts

The Kistian Duelist is just one example of a common fantasy trope; the warrior with some sort of innate magical power. The same trope is often applied to skill-based concepts as well, producing shapeshifting assassins, sorcery-singing bards, or artisans with frankly impossible creative powers.

There’s nothing wrong with this trope in of itself, but it’s a hard one to execute in a balanced way. The natural assumption when adding magic
to something is that it makes whatever it is even better. If a warrior is good, a warrior with magic must naturally be superior.

Resist this urge. Unless you want your entire campaign to consist of multiple flavors of mage, a plain, untainted warrior or straight-up thief has to
be better at something related to their role than the magical equivalent. In Worlds Without Number, the Warrior has class abilities that make them better at general slaughter than the Duelist. If you make a class that can do as much reliable damage and take as much punishment as the Warrior can, you risk the deprecation of an entire swath of concepts.

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This is also why the Duelist/Warrior is more fragile than both the Warrior and the usual Warrior/Mage hybrid.

** The Blood Priest has abilities to heal; however, the Healer is overall better at magical healing. The Blood Priest also has abilities to turn away false life (e.g., undead, automatons, extraplanars, etc.). However, the Necromancer is the best at fighting undead with their spell "Smite the Dead."

As I said earlier, Atlas of the Latter Earth also adds four new partial classes:

• The Accursed (partial mage): i.e., the Warlock
• The Bard (partial expert)
• The Wise (partial expert): the low-magic mage or hedgewizard
• The Mageslayer (partial warrior): partial mage is prohibited, so it is only either Warrior/Mageslayer or Expert/Mageslayer.

I played TSR stuff at the time and play mostly 5e now. The last time I played a TSR era D&D game was in one of my Pathfinder 1e games (Reign of Winter AP) when the party went into the First World/Feywild I converted everything into 1e AD&D (and OD&D bard rules) rules for while they were in the primal land of faery where reality works in arcane unknowable laws that most do not really understand. I was even able to throw in a little Hackmaster monsters since the mechanics were close enough.

I still get a bunch of OSR and old TSR PDFs for use with lore and inspiration and such in my current games. My current 5e game I DM, for example, uses a bunch of religious lore on the dragon god Asterinion from the 2e Draconomicon and the 2e Monster Mythology.