Thanks for all of the replies!
Roll For Combat found this:
And then does their own video discussing it.
For completeness, here is the link to the 348 page thesis.
Roll For Combat is going to have Ryan Dancey, the original architect of the OGL, on today (1/11) at some point.
Further, it sounds like Legal Eagle is talking to many people and might have a video on it soon! I look forward to that!
Thanks again for the discussion!
You don’t think they are over-the-top demigod like?
Well…I do have a 1e campaign ready to go. I also have it converted to 5e. I have ran the 1e once and the 5e one 3 times. It has a very different feel and the over-the-top ness is much more present in the 5e one. Try the 1e then the 5e and then let’s see what you think 
I did, right after it did come out, run a few month SpellJammer campaign.
I had to bring in many things from the original SpellJammer…and it went very well. However, it is still 5e :)…and it definitely didn’t feel like a Space Opera campaign. It felt like a 5e just in a different locale. It could be that I just have an overly restrictive definition of ‘Space Opera’.
i found out all this was going on here
https://somethingpositive.net/
No, I don’t. I have played since 1E. (“You, sir, are no 1E.” Wait, no, that doesn’t work.) I think the two systems are different enough that it’s apples and orangutans.
I’m not saying they don’t play differently. Otherwise, 5E didn’t learn anything in forty years. They were written for very different audiences as well. I’m saying that 5E doesn’t feel over-the-top-godlike compared to its ancestor and cousin, 3.X/PF. Run your campaign as written for 1E or 5E for a 3E group and see what I mean.
Yep, gotta love Mike!
Thanks for the replies!
For those that missed it:
I found this a fascinating watch.
To sum up: It is Dancey’s opinion, and while he didn’t write the actual OGL1.0 he was involved in its creation and knew its intent. Further, he was the one who went to several companies to promise them of the good intentions behind the OGL.
While they refuse to give legal advice and say that each 3PP will have to decide what they want to do, based on their comfort level and lawyer, a lot of the video talks about law. It says that the OGL is a contract, which is more defined, and if a 3PP is upholding its end of the contract in respecting Product Identity, then the other person in that contract, WotC, is obligated to uphold their end.
They do talk a lot about history and other topics, including speculation on why WotC would do this. It’s all speculation and I found all of it interesting.
I can say that I’m really glad I’m not a 3PP. They are in a bind right now over this and it will hurt several. ENWorld has a list of responses from smaller 3PP and I get the feeling that it is not a fun time for them.
That is the most painfully late-‘Nineties website I’ve seen in a long time with constantly refreshing frames, obnoxious pop-up ads, and scammy redirects. I’m surprised it didn’t start blaring out a digitized version of Counting Crow’s “Hanginaround” with the harmony modified just enough to claim that it doesn’t violate copyright. That link should come with a warning regarding impact to you SAN stat.
Stranger
Never played 3.5 though have read people talking about it which meshes with what you say.
I went from 1e straight to 5e. After I left the hobby after school (early to mid 80s ish) I didn’t get back in until retirement. I remember thinking…“Is D&D or other games still even played?” doing a google search and was shocked and amazed.
It sounds like D&D went off the rails even back in 3.5. Ok you will disagree with ‘off the rails’ but me, having DMd and experienced both do not think 5e is much of an improvement over 1e. I do like adv/disadv and some other rules but, as a whole, don’t really consider 5e all that ‘superior’. I know I am in a minority on this.
But that is besides the point. Besides D&D there are SO MANY OTHER systems out there and many of them are INTERESTING! I recently ran a small ‘Kids on Bikes’ campaign and it was incredible! I just wish that so many ‘only D&D 5e and generic campaigns at that’ players would broaden their horizons and and hoping (but not expecting) current One D&D problems will help with that.
My big problem with 1E is the same with 5E, too much DM fiat. Now today we could talk about how personalities have to match at the table and the idea of the game. Back then, if you only knew of one game, you either fit in or didn’t play. I found 1E/2E very swingy in that way. 3E created a set of rules that let a player, imo, have an idea of what to expect when they were at the table. That made it easier to find a group you did fit with on personality.
3E can absolutely be power gamed. I work with my players not to do that and then don’t do that with monsters. I’m trying to tell a story. Not to say we don’t have long combats but that’s not my focus. I don’t prefer the high ACs that can happen and house rule my game a fair amount, either by things I allow them to find or give to them. Again, I work with my players for what I hope is a fun experience.
I have played many systems out there and enjoy them. Alternity is my favorite but is sadly dated now such that I don’t think I would run it. Sad to realize that. Shadowrun 4/5/6E is one I enjoy. WoD. Star Wars d6. (I don’t prefer FFG’s take on it) Exalted. My in person group has graciously gone with me to play something different between fantasy campaigns. My remote only group has told me if we aren’t playing fantasy, I might lose some players. While we are using PF1, I think that is typical for 5E currently. A lot of players want to play 5E and that’s it. Or only play Dungeons and Dragons because, in a surprise to me, it’s cool now.
I also bring in anything fun to the game, which is why I like all of those different games and versions. I don’t use Adv/disadv but I do have variable bonuses with Bless and Prayer. I like spell slots compared to Vancian, which I never liked. I actually think spell slots is the best version of a DND magic system that I have read. I don’t require flanking just two people attacking the same person to allow sneak attack. I let Vital Strike, and the chain, be done on every attack, for monsters and players. I use the three action economy without the penalty to attack. Makes my combats as short as it can because it’s deadly. The only thing I don’t like about not using the recursive penalty is that it does create static fights instead of dynamic movement.
I don’t think any game is superior over another. If a group is having fun, they are doing it right. Glad to have you back gaming! I’m just also opinionated about what I like, not that anyone should have to play it that way.
Thanks for the discussion!
Primarily being a DM…I don’t like encroachment on DM fiat! LOL
I understand though…but if you play 1e rules focused, the players do know what to expect and can maneuver to try to make the best of them…though 5e gives too much to the players hence my ‘Demigod’ players comment.
I have and Do DM 5e quite a bit and have fun doing so. It’s just I want to try other scenarios besides Heroic Fantasy as we discussed. What does bother me, as a DM, even when in full 5e DM mode is some players are very against ANY DM fiat. When I first DMed 5e I embraced the over-the-top ness but really struggled with how weak the 5e monsters were. It wasn’t until I watched some DM Youtubers who strongly suggested using DM fiat and changing the monsters to make them more scary. I mean, seriously, does any 5e monster REALLY scare you? In 1e, there were some genuinely really, REALLY scary monsters that players would try to avoid confronting at almost all costs. 
So, I started strengthening the monsters. Trying to make them at least, a little bit scary. Usually this involved making them do more damage, their unique abilities harder to avoid and having more punch, add other abilities or so. Not like back in 1e…but SOMEWHAT. I would make this clear in Session Zero so players could back out but I still had some players that I could tell it bugged them. Since they agreed in session zero they usually didn’t say much but it bothered some. I could tell some players didn’t like an unexpected challenge…not calling them metagamers perse…but they have the MM…they can read or they have met the monster before in other games. This is where the, to me, ‘modern’ expectation that DMs should not have Fiat clashes.
That being said, I played as a player a few times back in the day in 1e though I was a DM 90%+ of the time. Some of those games could just be too weird and not really D&D. It IS nice, as you say, to have a more ‘shared vision’ among players as to what a D&D world is.
The other issue I have is, back in the day, I could DM and make adventures like no tomorrow. It was invigorating and not really work. For some reason, 5e is draining. I liked DMing and I liked making adventures…but it was more …draining. I never got burned out DMing before but, with 5e, I need frequent breaks. 5e, in other words, gets OLD. I never had that feeling before. It could be I am old now…but I don’t think that is it. 5e is just…hard…on DMs, imo.
I think that part of this may be that, in 1E, there were a fair number of “scary monsters” that did more than simply inflict hit-point damage: powerful undead could permanently drain character levels, and there were monsters with “save or die” powers, which could kill you on a single bad die roll.
IME, some gamers (particularly old-school gamers) really like the challenge and intensity that comes with knowing that any given encounter, any given fight, could lead to character death – I’ve run into players, even in the relatively recent past, who’ve expressed to me that, “if there’s not a significant chance of my character dying in a game, it doesn’t interest me.”
I think the above has become a minority view, however. In my somewhat limited experience with 5E, once characters get a few levels under their belts (though I certainly wouldn’t term them “demi-gods”), killing them outright, particularly in a single blow, is a lot harder. Back in even 3E/3.5, -10 HP was dead-dead, whereas, in 5E, you have to take enough damage from a blow to effectively take you to the negative of your normal HP maximum to outright kill you.
IME, characters can, and do, “fall down” (go to 0 HP) a fair amount in 5E, but in our play of Storm King’s Thunder, we haven’t ever even come close to having a character actually die.
I’m primarily a DM as well and I don’t mind losing DM fiat. I want my players to point out when I’m not following a rule because I don’t have rule mastery as I used to. I hope I have gained the trust of my players that if I’m not following a rule, I have a reason for it. I agree that not having any DM fiat means they are a player! 
I think the Tomb of Horrors is the best example of why DM Fiat is bad. Gary wrote that to prove that no one was perfect and to destroy characters. That’s all it was for. For wargamers, “beating” a scenario was probably fun. For me, that’s a waste of time. Again, different things for different groups.
Does any 5E monster scare me? Yes. Ghosts or any creature that can do a possession. 5E seemed to return CHA to a dump stat and to get rid of possession is a CHA save. It’s not even that high of a save, 13, but if failed, they can only get rid of it by someone turning it, the ghost wills it, or reducing the body to 0 hit points. Otherwise, it’s permanent! A haunted place with more than one ghost attacking the party to try and possess them will eventually do that. The bad die roll will happen. Then what? In general, though, I agree with your point. 5E monsters don’t scare me.
I wasn’t confident enough when I was running 1E/2E to modify things or stand up to my players. I could now but I don’t prefer those as a base system. I would heavily modify them so as to not recognize them.
I currently change monsters as needed. Not during a fight. If a fight fails, if possible they learn from it.
I personally don’t have a problem with ideas for an adventure. I have problems with ideas that will work and are fun. For example, I came up with what I thought would be a fun campaign where the players can only start with Core PF1 classes and if they wanted to become a Magus, for example, I would push them to multi class and then have them be the ones that found the way to be a Magus and switch all levels over to it. Even before then, I said they would slowly get some of the Magus abilities, as it was central to their concept. Oooo, they didn’t like being restricted in their choices. My players tend not to like political campaigns, so I have to keep that to the background. I still find myself doing a bit too much with politics at times. And so on.
I never liked “save or die” powers. Same for level drain. One of the things I had to learn was that this is a game and people, especially my group as middle aged adults, are looking for something fun. Those things are not fun. One of the things that 4E did right was the gaze of a medusa wasn’t save or die. It took two failed saves in a row, with penalties for each step in the process. It still took the character out of the combat which was the point.
I appreciate that 5E orcs and other “low level” monsters are more viable at all levels, just need a higher ratio of the monsters to players. It never feels like heroic fantasy to me with 5E, where a mid level group can’t hold the bridge/pass/chokepoint against the hundreds of orcs. They might be able to for a while but not more than an hour. In contrast, a mid level 3E/PF group could hold that pass for quite a while, depending on some spells and healing available, and a high level 3E/PF group would just destroy all the orcs. Again, that’s me.
Thanks for the replies!
I think 1e gets a bad rap in this regard. If you started a character in 1e (at least in my or my friends D&D) you could expect to live. Yes, you may die and characters did, but death wasn’t hitting all the time. Amongst youngsters, they hear 1e as being a death factory. Yes, it was scarier but not all death all the time. Even so, like 5e, many deaths or fates-worse-than-death like the Undead level drain were reversible…though at a significant resource drain (which is another thing 5e has mostly taken away…the struggle for resources). Also, 1e did have the -10 HP is death and 0-negative 9 as unconscious…I have the rule books on the bookshelf behind me )
I agree with those who say that if death isn’t a possibility, then it is uninteresting. Even in 5e that I run, my players are more scared than most, I think. Characters have died though at a lower rate than even 1e.
Getting off point again. Fear of death. I remember my first true 5e campaign on Roll20. Found a group of friends that wanted a DM and they started an adventure. I STILL remember the sense of horror and quiet gaps when they started to fight…because the fights were TOUGH. They were a younger group - 20s…and they started questioning my DMing…and I told them to bite down and get tough and FIGHT.
They did…and they DID. The one thing I do love about 5e is that a party can really dig down and find ways out of a tough situation…and they DID. Again and again they found themselves in what looked like a very tough and losing fight to just find a creative way to win.
And you know what? THEY LOVED IT! I remember comments like “Well, it is clear previous DMs took it easy on us!” Two of them recently accused me (with good nature) that I ruined D&D for them. They have tried other other DMs and they found it just too easy and they discovered they didn’t like it and so they keep coming back to me. A Third became a DM himself and said that he uses me as a role model and makes his fights tough.
I seem to remember that that was an optional rule in AD&D, or at least not in the original books, but I may be mistaken.
I have to head out, but I will try to give a rule/page number when I get back.
Basic D&D (or whatever it is called now) had 0=death but AD&D was always -10. I might be wrong but we were real rules hounds/lawyers back then (we wanted to follow the rules as close as possible) and switching from Basic to AD&D was to go from 0=death to -10.
I think we would agree more than disagree.
I have done TPKs, including in the past two years, and other negative permanent effects, like curses. My players know that it can happen which keeps it interesting for them. I hope. I agree that threat of the character dying needs to be there.
Well, awctuallly … I also have the books behind me and by the RAW, 0 is death in 1E/2E. It was an optional rule, though. 3E was the first to say that -10 was death. PF1 said -(CON Score) was death. 4E was more complex. 5E is death saves but down at 0.
Just looked it up, and you’re right. 1E DMG, p. 82.
I think you’re both right. According to that link, the 1e player’s handbook says that 0 hp=dead, but the DMG says that -10 hp=dead. 2e apparently went back to plain old 0=dead.
There are quotes at the link for y’all skeptics.
LOL! Yep. The fun contradictions of 1E continues. I looked at the PH first, which says 0 or negative equals death. But the DMG allows up to -10. In fact, same rules as 3E, really. 2E went to 0 = dead.
That level drain stuff never made any sense. I can see draining a hit die, but forgetting how to fight?
True, however, to most players that is a feature not a bug. I have seen some Youtubes etc suggesting playing 5e as once you get to 0 you are dead. And DMs insisting their players loved it. My response to that is to ask your players and give them the option- deaths saves in 5e rules or insta-death upon 0 HP. I asked my players- and NONE wanted insta death. (Note that I did have one player who wanted to play a different character, his wasn’t working out, so he asked for a heroic death, and I gave his PC a nice one)
Well, 1st and 2nd level PCs could die with a single crit from an orc with a greataxe for example. But once you got higher, it was hard to kill and even harder to stay dead, what with Raise dead etc.
However, even in 5e, if the whole party drops to 0, then that is pretty much a TPK anyway.
Of course death in any RPG just means the player bring in a new character, so how “meaningful” is it?