>>96338504
>>96338466
Interesting discussion. In my experience, your statement here is a little incorrect:
>Basically, you have to remember that the reason players flock to 5e is that it represents the style they *want*, or think they want
A lot of people play D&D 5e not because they want to delve into dungeons and fight dragons, they want D&D 5e™ so that they can participate in the memes, buy a colorful set of dice, share reels of wacky NAT 20!!! moments and so on. They really mostly have no fucking idea what style they want as they're not familiar with any styles at all.

That being said, it can be overwhelmingly difficult to get people away from it. And you are right, there is a significant portion of them who legitimately enjoy the 5e playstyle: high-flying, easy, colorful, character-focused, with "interesting" build options. It's incredibly unlikely that these players will enjoy OSR even if Gygax himself ran the damn game.

>can I let players have the fun of 5e, while also enforcing the structure and mileu of osr?
Probably not in a way that's fun for you. Combat is the biggest problem and 5e combat is probably specifically what the players enjoy. You simply cannot run a satisfying OSR-style game when 5e has spells that break resource management, in addition to rules like death saving throws, short rests, abundant healing, etc.

Honestly, have you considered Shadowdark for them? It's not a bad gateway drug.