What is an RPG?

[HoloDust]

Mnementh said:

HoloDust said:

Original D&D was vastly different game than what it is today.

It was basically a game of survival horror - you enter the dungeon, where most things want you dead, with limited resources, and you're trying to get the treasure, using your wits and with as little combat as possible. Cause that dungeon is usually very dark, death is around every corner, life is very cheap, and you don't get any XP for killing anything. Only XP you get is gold you bring back to town - literally, 1GP is 1XP.

This actually sound a lot like Darkest Dungeon. I haven't thought about it before, but that game actually could come close to the megadungeon of original D&D - parties sent into the unknown to hopefully come back with some loot and more experience but also more scars. The difference is that Darkest Dungeon uses a more supernatural/Lovecraftion horror setting than classic fantasy.

That playstyle is very much still alive, especially in OSR circles. It is one I grew up with (I started in 80s with AD&D, and my DM had very Arneson/Gygax type of mindset, dungeons, hexcrawling and all) and I still implement a lot of those ideas in my games.