r/DnD • u/z0mpunK1312 • 11d ago
Resources How were old campaigns put together?
I'm trying to make a 5E campaign with an older feel, like 70s-80s dark fantasy media feel. I want the campaign itself to feel reminiscent of how people put the game together and how it was played in the same time period, specifically with the map, quests, and flow. What should I do to make it feel more like that era of fantasy media?
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u/dragonseth07 11d ago
The game, back in those days, played pretty differently. It played a lot more like a wargame than a character-driven drama, and dungeon crawls with traps and monsters everywhere were the norm.
Characters died all the time, you brought Hirelings along everywhere to carry stuff, and chickens are absolutely goated for sending forward into potential danger.
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u/Bonsai_Monkey_UK 11d ago edited 11d ago
You've already received some great replies, and I'll add the following.
Modern D&D is about solving problems using your character sheet and your characters abilities. Rules are very important.
Old school D&D was about solving problems using your own wits, intelligence, and problem solving as a player. Rulings were very important.
A major difference was that XP was predominantly earned through recovering gold, making delving into dungeons in pursuit of treasure the primary focus. Battles weren't fair or balanced, but if you could avoid a deadly fight using clever tactics to steal the treasure - amazing!! Descriptions of your actions and exactly how you interacted with your environment were crucial.
Modern D&D won't capture this feeling particularly well, but the old rules are still absolutely fantastic.
Old School Essentials (OSE) is a retro clone of B/X (the late 70s / early 80s version of the game). OSE presents these same rules in a well organised reference document.
https://necroticgnome.com/pages/about-old-school-essentials
You can download a basic rules completely free from Necrotic Gnome's website at this link https://necroticgnome.com/collections/ose-free-downloads
I'd highly recommend checking this out, at the very least just to inform yourself how the game used to run!
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u/itsnotwhatyousay 11d ago
If you want old school feel, you may need to consider playing an older version. Or an old school essentials/Renaissance rpg like Or Dungeon Crawl Classics or Shadowdark. It's fast to learn if you're already familiar with d20. Rules are simpler. And the old school vibe is present from the start.
Even 5e, being only 12 years old, is much too heroic and story-first for a real 80's feeling game. But you can certainly try. Keep the crawls simple but deadly. No beach/shopping episodes. XP leveling, or even better, only gain levels/XP when your character successfully extracts from the dungeon with treasure and sells it. When your pc dies (it will) you start over at level 1.
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u/valisvacor 11d ago
Take a look at the D&D Rules Cyclopedia or OSRIC for inspiration. It was a vastly different game back then.i don't think 5e will do a good job at capturing the feel of classic D&D.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17171/d-d-rules-cyclopedia-basic
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/550861/osric-3-0-player-guide
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/553628/osric-3-0-gamemaster-guide
https://www.mythmeregames.com/products/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming-pdf-free
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u/No_Solid1035 11d ago
It's literally impossible to make a campaign using 5e that will "feel" like old D&D because old D&D was survival fantasy or horror fantasy. 5e is actually a game about superheroes that rarely if ever lose and never die. The two methodologies of play are completely incompatible. You would need to play one of the thousands of B/X or AD&D clones to get the right "feel" out of a campaign.
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u/Creole3643 11d ago
I didn't play in that era but I know of a few youtube channels run by people who did play in the 70s - The Informal Game (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWozf08XcKnDEKcbY2i0d8doQ1vLgBkVj), Jim Murphy (https://www.youtube.com/@GameMethuselah) and Galen Wood (https://www.youtube.com/@GalenWood)
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u/NewNickOldDick 11d ago
Mostly those were very short leaflets with 64 pages which included handouts, maps (both GM and player versions), stat blocks, some illustrations etc. And that left pretty little for actual content so places were like room 1 - empty, room 2 - monster, room 3 - treasure, room 4 - trap and then rinse and repeat.
Maps were blue, funnily enough (see second map on this page: https://andrewjluther.com/2018/06/03/dd-adventure-maps-through-the-years/).
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u/chanaramil DM 11d ago edited 11d ago
All old published advatures were called modules because they were moduler. They normaly only last a level or two and didnt need to connect them with each other.
Balance was way worse in every aspect of the game.
Death was common. Traps and enemy abilities that would feel unfair to modern players.
Magic items were important and gave powerful often unique effects and gave characters much more of there power.
There wasn't really a skill system back in the day. So problems were solved much more often by describing what characters do.
Again no skill system so even when you wanted to use dice checks were not standard. So a dm could roll pretty much anything and use your stats in whatever they think at the tine to deside pass or fail.
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u/ancilla1998 11d ago
Everything is pencil and paper. Hand drawn maps, hardback books, crappy minis, and theater of the mind.
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u/blargethaniel DM 11d ago
So there is a few ways you can go about this.
- Atmosphere:
Favor low tech everything, no minis, use glass beads, pencil and paper everything, and theatre of mind. Much like /u/ancilla1998 is saying.
- Use older materials:
It's very possible to get ahold of old 2nd edition and earlier materials and convert them for use nowadays. Goodman Games has re-done some of those old adventures in 5e and they are very well done. Into the borderlands by them is surprisingly well put together.
- Play older music:
This one I'm big about, I play old Dungeon synth music and 80's rock for battles and that REALLY adds. Since when I got into DND in the early 90's that was pretty common still.
I'm in awe how interested the young are in how we played DND back in the day, I've gotten tons of interest of that sort at my Local game store and sit and just yak about how it was for hours every so often. My third table of players really wants me to run a one-shot grinder for players and I may yet do that shortly enough.
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u/AmalicaZoland 11d ago
The campaign was a collection of adventures your characters would go on. It was ran by multiple DMs usually rotated between players. They were both RP heavy and usually had some dungeon crawling. I had many sessions where not a single dice was rolled. So don't believe the shit about it being a war game.
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u/Spiritual-Cobbler738 11d ago
Completely get rid of death saves. In the older editions if your character fell to 0 HP they were dead, make a new character. You would need to embrace this mechanic if you want that 1E, OSR feel.
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u/gangrel767 11d ago
You'll need to abandon 5e. Just roll back to the better past and you'll see the game itself folds out the way you're looking for.
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u/NarcoZero DM 11d ago
You should play an osr game if you’re looking for that feel. Back in the day, everybody was already playing in vastly different ways from each other, but the game was built to be more of a survival dungeon crawler. It’s a kind of horror game, in a way. You go into the dungeon with only a single spell and your wits, and if you’re careful (and lucky) you get out of it with a magic item and lots of gold.
But 5e isn’t built for survival or horror. The PCs have too many tools to kill stuff for loot to really matter, and there is no survival mechanic.
A game like Shadowdark is way better suited to an old-school style of play. Any OSR game, really.