Monsters/Humanoids as Playable races in D&D

It has been leaked that the forthcoming Volo's Guide to Monsters will have rules for playing Aasimar, Bugbears, Firbolgs, Goblins,Goliaths, hobgoblins, Kenku, Kobolds, Lizardfolk, Orcs, Tabaxi and Tritons.

Setting aside my current movement towards even finding elves a bit problematic as a playable race, I can see the case for things like Aasimar, Kenky and Goliaths.

But bugbears? Goblins? Hobgoblins? I've even seen complaints that gnolls weren't included. What? These are monsters.

I guess it comes out of an assumption that I've grown to wholesale reject - A naturalistic approach to critters. Ie, that gnolls or bugbears are just another intelligent species like any other, albeit one more violent then most.  In other words, they are not really monsters.

This approach, populised I suppose by the WoW/Eberron approach to orcs as Noble Savages, to me roundly defeats much of the Raison d'Etre for D&D adventuring - Namely that it is ok to kill these critters and take their stuff.

Gnolls are not just intelligent jackals. They are a horrible demonic hybrid of man and jackal whose existence is an explicit and intentional threat to human society. 

Hobgoblins are not just a species of a race called goblins. They are (imc), Devilmen - Tribes of former humans who turned to devil worship and were inevitably corrupted by their association with evil. They are a diabolical mirror of mankind that represents not only mankind's potential extinction but it's ultimately wilful worst transformation.

Goblins, bugbears and ogres I treat as variations of troll (in the nordic sense of the word - Paul Anderson's take on trolls are just a genetic warmachine of a former empire) - They are something mythic, with fey associations, existing in liminal zones between the mythic unknown and the known world.

The point being - None of them are natural. They are not naturalistic species in the sense of being just another biological species with different outlook and appearance. They are monstrous. Their very nature marks them as something antithetic to mankind - They are products of cosmic forces that would gladly see mankind wiped out - forces fundamentally alien to mankind.

When human adventurers go into the wilds and meet these critters it is not just a question of fighting them because they are in the way and might be dangerous. It is about encountering forces that represent an existential threat to the very world order that mankind is part of. Of course it is justified to kill them and take their stuff!

I should note, I did take a different tack with Orcs, who to me are a bloodthirsty and more ferocious image of what neanderthals might have been had they not gone extinct, but nevertheless lost the evolutionary race with homo sapiens by the time the middle ages come around. 

They are also called "Sub-men" (with all the Talislantan implications of the word) and basically a savage antediluvian cousin to men, whose long history of bloodthirsty animalistic savagery has degenerated them even further. Basically, their shot at growing as a race came and went, and they remain now only as a cancerous evolutionary dead end. Still, from this we get half-orcs as a possible player race.

Kobolds I treat as basically nasty-minded sentient rats that live on the fringes of civilization - which is more or less in keeping with the historical depiction of kobolds. I suppose if you really wanted to play as reviled chattel, you could play a kobold.

Halfling [Race-as-class] for 5e (RedNext B/-5e hack)

Halfling - Racial Class 5e (PDF)

First of all, let me start by saying - 5e may be simple and balanced, but class design is NOT. 

Class design is really where the designers put in the highest level of complexity into the system. Lots of unique sub systems (battemaster, warlock), maneuvers that break the action economy in unique ways, implied strategic build paths, etc. All stuff I want to simplify away with RedNext - take away the excess of moving parts. 

But even besides that, there is lots to consider - Every level gets a bennie of some sort (in three tiers), some hardcore class defining ones, others thematic. And impact of bennies is asymmetrical from class to class (except 5th and 11th). And all of them have frontloaded abilities that are on the surface overpowered. 

Weighing all these up and when to put the big ones is a lot to consider - Making the Halfling took time! Dwarf and elf might be easier purely because I now have a better grasp of the ideas behind class design, but they wont be up overnight.

Designer Notes on the 5e Halfling

For the Halfling, I lined up Fighter, Rogue and Ranger abilities on each level in a spreadsheet (assymetrical power curve per level makes it difficult to assess the weight of each bennie on each level), made another list of abilities (mainly feats and sub-race abilities) that would be nice to insert, filtered out the bennies that didn't fit a halfling build and started looking according to the following criteria from Menzer's basic:

• -2 AC against large.
• Best Saves
• +1 missile weapons & initiative
• Hiding (90% outdoors, 33 in dungeon).

Besides this, my own gamist analysis of what that makes the Halfling and what it ought to be:

• A mix of fighter and rogue - In many ways a civilised, slightly less martial, ranger. But also a build that, while reminiscent in style of these two, is suitably distinct from both and Based on a different 'rules theme' (re-rolls, avoiding damage). ie, Halfling may thematically be a rangery fighter/rogue, but they should have a different 'rules feel' and benny niche to them than just smashing those two together (ie, less of the 'my rogue got a new bennie!' - 'neat. my halfling got the same'). 
• High survivability and luck
• less outstanding (tier 1) abilities, but more tier 2 ones to make a more rounded and bit broader class than the others. Less of the flashy 'nova' abilities (Sneak Attack, Action Surge) which is rather un-hobitty, but someone who can hold their own in most any situation. Outstanding feature is as a scout.

Douwe Dabbert

Fictional inspirations are mostly: 

• Tolkien (of course) - Basically my imaginary lens of "how would previous hobbits Gandalf took adventuring turn out? (which comes down to the unrealised archetype of Trotter)"
• Douwe Dabbert - Not sure if American readers will know him, but it's a classic here in Denmark. Douwe is to me the archetype of a drifter halfling who made it to old age
• A dash of Kender (sorry grognards, but take out the silliness and they are a great adventuring spin on Halflings).

Without further ado, here is the first draft of the 5e Halfling-as-Class (note the intentional lack of build options). Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Halfling - Racial Class 5e (PDF)

Halfling - Racial Class for 5th Edition

You are a Halfling – While most of your kin are content with a rural life, rarely venturing even as far as the neighboring village, that is not you. You are struck by a well known but rare impulse among the little folk – Wanderlust. You are rootless, a drifter, drawn to see what lies beyond the next hill.

Your travels take you into the world of men and dangerous lands, demanding that you make the most of the virtues of your people to survive. While the big folk may be stronger, more cunning and even wield magic, you are nimble, sturdy, brave and lucky – Other races may make bigger waves, but halflings unassumingly survive in the face of many threats larger people would not.

Class Features

As a Halfling, you gain the following class features:

Trotter

Hit Dice: 1d8 per level

Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier

Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per level after 1st

Armor:All armor, shields - These must be fitted to size.

Weapons: Simple Weapons, Martial Finesse Weapons, Blowguns, Hand Crossbows, Nets.

Saving Throws:Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom

Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution by 1.

Size:Halflings average about 3 feet tall and weigh about 40 pounds. Your size is Small.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet.

Level	Title	Proficiency Bonus	Features
1st	Halfling Veteran	+2	Lucky, Brave, Nimble, Stealthy, Durable, Wanderlust
2nd	Halfling Warrior	+2	Eye for Distance, Halfling’s Knack, Botanist
3rd	Halfling Swordmaster	+2	Poultices
4th	Halfling Hero	+2	Ability Score Improvement
5th	Halfling Swashbuckler	+3	Stalker’s Dodge
6th	Halfling Myrmidon	+3	Extra Attack
7th	Halfling Champion	+3	Escape the horde , Herbalist
8th	Halfling Sheriff	+3	Ability Score Improvement
9th	Lord	+4	Indomitable (one use)
10th		+4	Halfling Fortitude
11th		+4	Volley
12th		+4	Ability Score Improvement
13th		+5	Indomitable II
14th		+5	Stalker
15th		+5	Magic Resilience, Slippery
16th		+5	Ability Score Improvement
17th		+6	Indomitable
18th		+6	Elusive
19th		+6	Ability Score Improvement
20th		+6	Stroke of Luck

1^st Level Abilities

Lucky: When you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can re-roll the die and must use the new roll.

Brave: You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Nimble: You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.

Naturally Stealthy:You can attempt to hide even when you are lightly obscured or obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.

Furthermore, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.

Wanderlust: You are a master of navigating the outdoors and react with swift and decisive action when attacked. This grants you the following benefits:

• You ignore difficult terrain.

• You have advantage on initiative rolls.

• On your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted.

You gain the following benefits when traveling for an hour or more:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.

• Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.

• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.

• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.

2^nd Level Abilities

Eye for Distance: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged and thrown weapons.

Halfling’s Knack: You can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Help, Hide or Use an Object action.

Botanist: You are a master of herbs, both for their taste and medicinal value. You have mastered a variety of special recipes, allowing you to prepare special dishes with useful effects. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain proficiency with cook’s utensils. If you are already proficient with them, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with them.

• During a long rest, you can spend an hour to prepare and serve an especially nutrient meal that helps you and your allies recover from the rigors of adventuring, provided you have suitable food, cook’s utensils, and special herbs and spice on hand. Such herbs can be gathered beforehand with an hour of foraging.

The meal serves up to six people, and each person who eats it regains and may spend an additional Hit Die at the end of the long rest.

3^rd Level Abilities

Poultices:Your herbal mastery allows you to create especially potent poultices to combine with a healer’s kit to mend wounds and get your allies back on their feet. You gain the following benefits:

• When you use a healer's kit with your poultices to stabilize a dying creature, that creature also regains 1 hit point.

• As an action. you can spend one use of a healer's kit and poultice to tend to a creature and restore 1d6 + plus additional hit points equal to the twice the creature's maximum Hit Dice.

You may prepare a number of poultices equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) in similar fashion to meals, as described under Botanist.

You can prepare both meal and poultice during a long rest, but recipients can benefit only from one of poultice or meal per long rest (ie, a recipient who healed from a meal during a long rest and then received a poultice would gain no benefit from either on the next long rest),

The poultices you create cannot be applied by anyone but you. After 24 hours, any poultices that you have not used lose their potency.

4^th Level Abilities

Ability Score Improvement: Increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

5^th Level Abilities

Stalker’s Dodge: Whenever a creature you can see attacks you and does not have advantage, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the creature’s attack roll against you. You can use this feature before or after the attack roll is made, but it must be used before the outcome of the roll is determined.

6^th Level Abilities

Extra Attack: You can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

7^thLevel Abilities

Escape the Horde:Opportunity attacks against you are made with disadvantage.

Herbalist: Your culinary skills extend to detecting and curing poisons.

As an action, you can inspect a drink or plate of food within 5 feet of you and determine whether it is poisoned, provided that you can see and smell it.

Moreover, You can spend an hour preparing a fresh concoction to cure one poison effect on the creature you are applying it to. It only works when consumed immediately.

8^th Level Abilities

Ability Score Improvement: Increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

9^th Level Abilities

Indomitable: You can re-roll a saving throw that you fail. If you do so, you must use the new roll, and you can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

10^th Level Abilities

Halfling Fortitude: You have Proficiency with all saves.

Furthermore, you have advantage on saves against poison, and resistance to poison damage.

11^th Level Abilities

Volley: You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon’s range. You must have ammunition for each target, as normal, and you make a separate attack roll for each target.

12^th Level Abilities

Ability Score Improvement: Increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

13^th Level Abilities

Indomitable II:You can use this feature twice between long rests.

14^th Level Abilities

Cunning Stalker:You gain the following benefits:

When you are hidden from a creature and miss it with a ranged weapon attack, making the attack doesn't reveal your position.

Dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight.

15^th Level Abilities

Magic Sturdiness: You have advantage on all saves against magic.

Additionally, you may take the  Use an Object action to activate magic items.

Slippery: You gain +2 to AC against melee attacks made by Medium-sized creatures or larger.

16^th Level Abilities

Ability Score Improvement: Increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

17^th Level Abilities

Indomitable III: You can use this feature thrice between long rests

18^th Level Abilities

Elusive: You are so evasive that attackers rarely gain the upper hand against you. No attack roll has advantage against you while you aren't incapacitated.

19^th Level Abilities

Ability Score Improvement: Increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

20^th Level Abilities

Stroke of Luck: You have an uncanny knack for succeeding when you need to. If your attack misses a target within range, you can turn the miss into a hit. Alternatively, if you fail an ability check, you can treat the d20 roll as a 20. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Skills in D&D - And in RedNext (B/X-5e hack)

Skills is a problem. Always has been. It's a problem to have them and a problem not to have them. Back in the day, I considered myself a skill-aficionado. The thought that not having skills could be a well-considered feature of a system didn't really occur to me. These days, I am between two stools of appreciating the advantages to not having skills and still liking skills for the way it helps to distinguish and characterise characters.

And this is why I don't like 5e skills - they are too generic and basic. They don't actually say anything about the character. We have skills in my 5e group, but I can't see we've used them for much other than 'guess I can add +2 to that roll'. In other words, they might as well not be there.

With that in mind, my baseline is a slight modification of the OSR standard:

Anyone can more or less try anything.

For my 5e OSR document, I edited out all skill references to take as my baseline. Sort of. Actually, skills are sorted by attribute and holds examples of when they can be used. I just removed the skill part and used them as examples of what attribute to use when attempting all of these things. So that's the baseline. More or less. I think this quote over on therpgsite by +thedungeondelver  frames the scope of adventuring capability and skills, if they have a place:

"In a very off-screen manner. I asked Gary once about skill systems, did he look back when in late AD&D at other systems that had skills and think "I wish I'd put skills in AD&D" and his response was no, that he felt in a level/class game that your character before they became an adventurer should be basically competent at foraging, swimming, climbing a rope (not the same as a thief's Climb Walls skill - that's for sheer, unassisted climbing up nearly impossible smooth surfaces, etc.), riding a horse and so on. Additionally, the "secondary professions" could blossom out into opportunities for players (for example, we have in the Fri. night game a player of a dwarf who happens to also be a lapidary, so pricing gems is easy enough for the party)."

Besides making a good point that Class itself substitutes for skill (or at least, ought to indicate skill), I think this passage also provides a good definition of what the 1st level adventurer is capable of. +Arnold K  on The Goblin Punch put it succinctly for me:

"You can think of the base adventurer as Indiana Jones minus the Archeologist."

I think, in 5e (and RedNext), a good way of representing this is: All characters of level 1 or higher have proficiency (ie, receive their proficiency bonus) in more or less everything. You are just that good. So go ahead and try it. Proficiency Bonus is a measure of your overall bad-ass ability and improves as you level up.

Indy - A 1st level Rogue with the Scholar background in D&D

One exception: 

• Combat and similar life-threatening attempts to do stuff

So you don't get a bonus to weapons or grappling etc unless your class specifies it (fighters however, are broadly proficient in combat - Meaning Fighters are the only ones who get their proficiency bonus to "try anything" in combat. From grappling to spear-impaling nutsacks or whatever).

There are two further aspects to this:

• Tasks your character is even better at than just proficient.

and

• Highly technical ('skilled') tasks

Tasks your character is even better at than just proficient is basically just determined by Class and Background (ie, much the same as Gygax intimated in the anecdote quoted above) and you get advantage on all such checks outside of combat and similar highly threatening situations

If you are a Forester Fighter, you have your proficiency bonus+attribute bonus and advantage on all non-threatened checks for stuff like tactics and appraising weapon quality (Fighter) and tracking in the woods and setting traps for game (forester). Anyone else is competent enough to try the same with bonus+attribute bonus but not with advantage. So your 'skill' (fighter/forester) packs a punch, even though anyone can try anything (and hope to succeed).

Highly technical ('skilled') tasks like weaponsmithing, lockpicking without a pick, climbing sheer walls without tools, hiding in plain sight or deciphering an ancient language that you can't really expect to be able to unless have actually studied this skill somewhat takes you one step down the "advantage" ladder. Ie, a rogue/burglar would be able to climb a sheer wall with a regular check. Everyone else would have disadvantage.

Doing it in a pressured threatening situation (like combat) would take you one step further down. Meaning only a skilled character like a rogue/burglar would be able to do it in combat at disadvantage. No one else would be able to do it.

=====================================

I am wondering if maybe the 'advantage/disadvantage' scale should be switched to altering DCs for skilled/unskilled characters and attempts instead. It has the advantage of keeping mechanics that suggest 'you can't do this' out of sight of PCs.

=====================================

There are still holes here. I'd like to give more opportunities for rounding out skill choices than just this (maybe something like 'skilled(advantage) in one personality trait - poor(disadvantage) in another trait') but not at the cost of KISS. And I am not sure how this interacts with rogues acquiring new skills and such. Class/ Background/Personality Trait are basically just skill focuses so maybe I just need to sit down and think on how to delineate a skill focus...

=====================================

One thing that definitely needs to be addressed with all this is "when to roll". I think it is a good rule of thumb to say: 

If the player can reasonably describe how he accomplishes a task, he accomplishes it.

If the player is lazy and doesn't do that, he has to roll. You always roll in combat.

Any rolls made then would simply be to 'degree of success' if applicable.

Further thoughts on "B/X-5e" hack: RedNext

First of all, in reply to some of the comments on my previous entry as to whether 5e hacks can be considered old-school or not and why I will continue to bill my little pocket project as OSR in my own mind - I like Greyhawk Grognard's definition:

"We play the old games, and the games that feel like the old games."

'nuff said. On to other matters: I guess I am going ahead with this.

Yesterday, I took the 5e SRD, split it into six booklet documents. Then I stripped it of all the stuff that won't fit in with my "Redbox 5e" mix. Cosmology guff, classes beyond the four basic ones, all races save dwarf,elf, halfling, feats and skills.  3 for players:

• Book 1: Characters (45 pages)
• Book 2: Playing the game (29 pages)
• Book 3: Magic (112 pages)

And another 3 for the DM:

• Book 4: Running the Game (16 pages)
• Book 5: Treasure (63 pages)
• Book 6: Monsters (164 pages)

Something like this if ever actually printed. Great for the actual table.

It needs further stripping as the page count, especially for magic, treasure and monsters is still too high (to be fair, these aren't much rules - Just loads of material made freely available by WotC) I will need to go through the docs and see what is superfluous or can be rewritten to simpler language, although my impression so far is that the authors did a really good job of this already.

This will be my base for hacking from which I can then add my own mods. Mostly, I will be looking at the B/X series. 

The design goal overall is "Basic Set approach with 100% 5e Compatibility" (meaning you can take anything from full 5e and drop in, or have characters designed with full 5e at the same table, or characters designed with this hack at a full 5e table, with zero adjustment or conversion needed).

Here is what I am thinking I want to add into the mix so far:

Race-as-Class 

(and as an optional sidebar rule - 'race AND class'). This will mean mixing 'human' race modifiers into the four human classes for simplicity, making a gish class for the elf and determining what kind of class exactly dwarves and halflings are beyond 'racial fighter' and 'racial rogue'.

I love race as class. Classes are archetypes for plug and play. So are races.

Level titles
It belongs - It's a great way of determining what to expect from each level.

Narratives
Narratives is an open content sub-system made for the Primeval Thule 5e campaign setting. It replaces backgrounds, is a bit more expansive in defining the characters and adds a few bells and whistles at higher levels. Functionally, I suppose it is somewhere between 2e kits and 5e backgrounds.

I intend to use them to replace the stripped out classes (So 'Ranger', 'Paladin', Barbarian', 'Druid', 'Bard', 'Warlock', would all be Narratives instead of independent classes) - I think this should work fine. These extra classes are essentially just thematic variations of the four basic ones, so it makes sense to handle them with a system designed to bring out thematic variation with only a few bells and whistles baked in.

New Skills System
Although 5e should get kodus for simplifying the skill system, I don't think they pulled it off really. Except for Perception and Stealth, I find that skills aren't really being used much in our 5e game and when they are, it feels clunky. Their presence don't really say anything about the character using them - they are too generic for that.
What they did right what making skills essentially just a thin layer on top of attribute checks. Meaning they are easy to discard or replace with a different system. Thumbs up for modularity, 5e!

I like the three variants in the DMG though. The attribute one is a nice way of just dropping skills.
The two others are simple and fluid and seem to encourage 'what I can do really well' in a way that says something about the character rather than a 'what I can and can't do' list. I am thinking of making a mix of them:

"Narrative Proficiency" - Basically, whatever a player can reasonably argue that a character of his background and training ought to be able to do, he is proficient in. Rangers can do outdoorsy stuff, warriors can grapple, Warlocks know stuff about outer beings, etc.

I am thinking of adding a few extra skill elements to allow for personalising characters: A narrow version of the personality trait proficiency and/or "one thing I did growing up" that falls outside the class system. Keep it loose and essentially improvisational - Hooks to play with the character that gives some mechanical benefit.

Another problem with the skill system is that they don't give much oomph. A +2 bonus is not much to distinguish between a trained locksmith and someone totally new. Gaming Ronin had a take on skills that I might take some inspiration from:

Everyone gets their proficiency bonus for everything. Adventurers are overall badass and keep getting more badass. If you attempt something that you are deemed "proficient" in, you get advantage where others get none. If what is being attempted is something that would be considered difficult to impossible for someone unskilled (smithing a sword, recalling details about a long lost empire) you roll normally where 'unskilled' ones get disadvantage.

This may all be too much though. I am not decided on this yet.

New Healing System
Nice and simple, adds a little resource management aspect to healing. Works well at our table:

Once pr day, you may EITHER:

• Spend one (and only one) hit die to heal during a Short or Long rest

OR

• Regain a hit die during a long rest.

If you choose to spend a hit die during a Long Rest, you roll with "advantage" on the healing die.

I don't always forget about healing spells. But when I do, I fire into melee.

Firing into melee
Because archers are cowards who need a bit of risk added.

If you make a ranged attack directed at an enemy target engaged with allies in melee, you roll with Disadvantage on your attack.
If you miss, the higher of the two rolls is used to attack other creatures within 5' of the target (starting with the one who is the most in the "line of fire" or roll a suitable die to determine randomly).  Keep in mind that the new target could also be another enemy(!).
When determining whether misses penetrate AC or not, leave out any proficiency, attribute or other bonuses and simply use what the die shows as the attack roll.

Afterword
At the end of the day, this looks totally doable.

The tricky part from here really is making the racial classes and having a 'caster' subclass for fighter and rogue that Ranger/Paladin/Bard Narratives can choose to go down at 3rd level. Since that already exists, it should be simple enough to check that it will map nicely enough.

The other tricky part will be attribute generation method(s). Not really sure about that at all just yet.

Then decide on what else goes into the DM booklets of cool and useful stuff.

I should probably also examine the long/short rest mechanic and see what uses it and if I can trim stuff out. The mechanic may work, but it is one of those invisible balance checks that are bad because they are opaque. Getting rid of all those classes should go a long way towards addressing this though.

Then TRIM TRIM TRIM to get the bloody page count down.

Then decide on a cool name. My working title is "RedNext".

Am I missing anything here? 

5e as the OSR engine of choice

So, recently I've been pondering the right D&D system. 

Since then, I've been leaning heavily towards 5th edition as the OSR engine of choice. Now, some of you may say "5th edition isn't OSR, man. It's got feats, and warlocks and dragonborn". And sure, it probably isn't. I am calling it the OSR engine of choice, because I delved into OSR games looking for a system designed on principles that the OSR champions: Simplicity, streamlined, easy to houserule, speed of play, limited amount of moving parts.

Now, full blown 5e doesn't exactly meet those requirements, but the free version, Basic D&D 5e, does. The four classic races only, The four classic classes only, no feats. Few modifiers, easy and simple maths, few assumptions on equipment. Lovely really.

Use one of the skill variants in the DMG for simpler and better skills and houserule in a stricter healing system and I'd say you have a lean, balanced and fast engine that can stand toe to toe with any OSR system.

And I have to say at this point: I was DEAD WRONG when I claimed "[5e] is so very tight and balanced - meaning every tinkering has a consequence".
5e IS balanced, compared to older games. But tight? No. I basically just projected my assumptions of modern games on to it. Unlike 4e and 3e, 5e is designed to be tinkered with - The DMG gives many variant rules and optional sub-systems. But these are just the tip of the iceberg for houseruling really. The big difference between 5e and other newer editions is that it holds a lot less expectations about how the game is supposed to be played and doesn't have as many interrelated moving parts. The basic chassis covers most of it and hardly needs tampering and whatever else you change, it is generally clear what will happen when you change it.

Classes as Class feature

The 5e Player's Handbook of course has a slew of classes beyond the 4 classic ones. And I like the idea of classes. to personalise a character. I just don't like all the moving parts it entails. It overdoes what it needs to do, to my mind.

The Backgrounds element of 5e covers a lot of the concepts previously handed with classes, kits and prestige classes (although maybe the Narratives from Primeval Thule does it even better) - but still, I'd like a teensy bit more. 2nd edition came the closest in representating the various new classes as sub groupings of the four basic ones, but didn't go nearly far enough. I think it can be done simply enough with 5e Basic though. Off the top of my head:

Fighting Man Class

Class Feature (chosen at 1st level): Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Fighter

Magic User Class
Class Feature (chosen at 1st level): Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer

Rogue Class
Class Feature (chosen at 1st level): Thief-Acrobat, Assassin, Bard

Priest Class
Class Feature (chosen at 1st level): Cleric as is. Choose a religion.

The class features wouldn't be much - Enough that a Paladin should feel thematically different from a Ranger. But not so much that they become something other than a tacked on feature of the basic class: Fighter/Magic-User/Rogue. And should be simple enough that it is easy to invent new features for Cavaliers, Witches, etc.

For Fighting Men, borrowing the most defining bits from the existing classes, maybe something added at a few defining levels. Done.
For Magic Users, even simpler. It would mostly be a matter of how you acquire your spells (wizards study, sorcerers intuit, warlocks bargain) and spelling out the procs and cons of each approach. Maybe allow for a different spellcasting attribute based on feature.
Rogue is already more or less there - Just tweak arcane trickster into something a little closer to a 2nd ed bard and you're done.

Hell, throw in some race-as-classes for dwarves, elves and halflings (maybe with a sidebar for an optional "race AND class" rule) and a small section for "changing class features" and this has the makings of a great OSR rendition of 5e. Call it "Red Hack 5e" or something. Fully compatible with 5e, with all the flavour of basic d&d.

*Adventures in Middle-Earth Player's Guide" is in my hands.mwuahahah

Just scanning the Overview Chapter so far and I am already seeing stuff to strip mine for my own game. dis gun be good.

Meditations on the right D&D system - how to choose?

I have recently felt a yearning to settle on a proper system as a lens to express and think D&D through.

The ones that are floating through my mind are B/X, Swords & Wizardry, 5e, DCC and Fantastic Heroes & Witchery.

For pure nostalgia, B/X is the one. And also why I am not feeling it for Labyrinth Lord. I don't really see what it is supposed to offer as a new iteration of BECMI when simplicity+nostalgia is a driving force? Less nostalgia and with little better solutions to make up for it that I can tell.

5th edition is the easy choice. It is modern, streamlined, easy to run. But its strength is also its weakness. It is so very tight and balanced - meaning every tinkering has a consequence (although far less than 3.5 or 4e). This sort of system also creates an expectation of balance, 'fair progression' etc. These may be valid concerns, but I'd like a system that flips players into a world where these concerns are trivial. This concern is contradictory to my concerns about retroclones I will address below.
5th edition also has the advantage of being our current system. And my group is hard to change. Funny enough, 5e's simplicity compared to 3.5 has shown my group that stuff like feats and such aren't really that important. I think convicing them to go even simpler could be doable.

Swords & Wizardry has appeal as a simple and streamlined system. And highly modular when you want extra complexity which is a big plus. And it has a small feature I wish it had more of - modern mechanics in the name of simplicity - its save mechanic and offering an ascending AC.

This alone could be enough to make me jump in, but to be honest, I want more of it. I love the idea of whitebox - simplest chassis possible, with just a few modern mechanics to simplify further and all the room in the world for the modular extensions you need and no more.

I just wish for a system willing to go even a bit further with modern mechanics that simplify. OD&D still has quirks that create toil that comes across as unnecessary from a modern perspective. XP bonus for prime requisites, gold for xp, the Thief as a whole, etc.

DCC is high on my list as something built on the same chassis, with modern mechanics on top - the fact that these mechanics are specifically servicing a pretty awesome genre and style of play is an extra plus. But it does seem to me that it goes a bit too far and is not quite so well executed at times. DCC 2nd edition I would play without hesitation.

Fantastic Heroes & Witchery, despite having plenty of bloat and poor organisation, appeals to me for its unabashed D&D-how-it-should-have-been quality and attitude of "can do" whenever you want something more than the basic approach. Racial classes (as opposed to race-as-class) is brilliant and should  be standard all across the D&D-sphere. And it is unabashed in taking in modern mechanics where they are simple and make sense - multiclass, xp progression, ascending AC, unified saves, streamlined attribute modifiers.

Conclusion:

FH&W and DCC seem like the best bets for Old School games that could also pass a litmus test of modern sensibilities for simple and balanced mechanics that don't try to reinvent the wheel.

Basically, if FH&W was organised differently, I'd run it, swear by it and disavow all else. But dumping a 425 page manual on the table does not convey "it'll be simple. don't worry." And the organisation of it is a bit of a mess as well, with classess spread throughout the book and such. I love that it wants to do so much, but it makes it a hard sell. I long for a more modular  FH&W.

My dream version of FH&W is a boxed set with booklets. One for character generation, one for spells and magic, one for rules in general, a Science-fantasy booklet, a Monsters booklet and a DMG booklet. This I could sell to my group with ease.

Alas, the next-best thing is probably DCC. Also an enormous book, but far more coherently laid out. The entry requirements are not steep - Maybe  FH&W is not either, but it does give an impression of being so (and these matter, unfortunately). I could probably sell this and we'd have loads fun. Even though secretly, I'd be wishing we were playing FH&W.