Quote from: Brad on May 27, 2024, 06:30:00 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 27, 2024, 05:05:39 PMHOWEVER, as a MARKETING TOOL, OSR has morphed into set of games with a narrow definition. At this point even stuff like C&C and Whitehack aren't OSR; I would also think White Box is right on the edge.

Except that's a lie. What was happening in the original OSR (1st wave) movement was that they were very open about playing all kinds of old games, and making supplements for those games, and making clones of those games, but they consistently rejected any modifications that went too far from whatever their favorite one true ruleset was. The old OSR was vastly more restrictive. Innovation was treated with witch-trial like suspicion.

Today, there are literally thousands of OSR products, most of which are 2nd or 3rd wave, that is to say not directly based on ANY specific TSR era product. But all are based on the core of D&D design concepts.  [/quote]

Quote from: Socratic-DM on May 27, 2024, 08:05:44 PMThis was such a slap to the face I felt the need to mark and structure a proper argument now.



The accusations that I was using some sort of weak ass debate tactic is something I find jarring, I didn't realize the steaks were that high for this, and all the funnier because you invoke a false equivalence I'll address in a moment.


For one you were playing coy, saving throws are not the only difference your games have, and while most of them are at best nitpicks if that,  since difference is not a marked sin? as far as my understanding the of the OSR is (except maybe the BroSR) you forget to mention all the other subtle mechanics you've shifted from the baseline. the result in something that plays very differently than the typical OSR game such as the ones you dragged into this argument like LOFP and ACKS.

Examples include but are not limited to, 1, lack of gold based XP  incentive structures, 2, randomized level progression, 3. unified saving throws, 4 non-standard resource management, such as lack of spell slots or consideration for wealth.

NO, my products do not significantly vary from other OSR products. NO, it is not difficult to interact with other OSR products. Because it is an OSR game. I can take any real OSR book not written by me, and take monsters, spell effects, magic items, NPCs and use them almost entirely AS-IS. The only parts that require tweaking would be very slight, like figuring out a single save number, or what the monster's morale would be if the other book doesn't use morale, etc.

That's what good design does. If you understand what the real CORE of D&D, you can change everything else you want around that core, and the compatibility remains.

As to your claims as to differences, for example:
1. gold-based XP DOESN'T MATTER. If you move one of my classes into a campaign that wants to use xp-for-gold, you just use the XP tables of that other game, and its done. Likewise, if you want to do it the other way, changing OSE from xp-for-gold to the L&D XP system likewise takes an instant. That's because experience points (much less WHAT gives you experience points) is NOT a vital part of the D&D mechanics.
LEVELING is the vital part. As long as you have levels, how one levels up can vary.

2. Random Leveling: DOESN'T MATTER. What matters is leveling. There is already random leveling in old-school D&D, you get random spells, for example. What matters is that the designer of a game is sufficiently skilled (if not a full-on pipe-smoking genius) to be able to understand the right formula to maintain a similar balance. Also, please give an example of how you think L&D's random leveling would create a COMPATIBILITY problem with another game? Like, are you trying to run Sword & Caravan with OSE? Are you worried about running Barrowmaze with L&D? Or are you wanting to let players decide any class they want to be from either L&D or Labyrinth Lord? In none of those three scenarios (though the last one is pretty weird) is there any real compatibility problem.

3. Swords & Wizardry has unified Saving throws, cunt. Next?

4. "non standard resource management"? "Such as spell slots or consideration of wealth"? WTF IS THIS EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! How is there not resource management in L&D? Not that there inherently needs to be, because again this is not part of the core of the D&D system; like if you didn't track encumbrance and just played it by ear that would not ruin anything of the game (except if you really enjoy encumbrance tracking itself). Spell slots are not an essential mechanic of the D&D game. You can make magic work in any number of other ways; DCC already proved that before L&D ever did.
And "lack of consideration of wealth"? WTF are you talking about? If anything, EVERY OTHER D&D game has a total lack of consideration for real social status, which is something that matters far more in real medieval cultures.
But L&D has wealth. You have starting equipment and some social classes have starting money. You have expenses and they're tracked, Penny Shilling and Pound (or Fal and Dirham, or Denarii and Grzywna). Things still have value and must be traded for. There's also no "local magic shop". Wealthy people have privileges the poor do not, though wealth is not nearly as important as class (the richest merchant is still just another fucking peasant compared to the poorest noble, though he could probably pay to have that noble killed).

So where the flying FUCK do you get this nonsense?

QuoteThese things combined add up to a play-style that is radically different and lacking resemblance with traditional OSR games, that's notable because YOUR ARGUMENT is that a d6-dice pool would play different or in your own hyperbolic words "Nothing like" an OSR game, well a typical Mytseria game looks nothing like a Lion & Dragon game even if fairly compatible, you simply are doing different things and are incentivised differently despite superficial stats and mechanics.

Playstyle in terms of style of play? In terms of what happens in a game? Yes. My games are not like greyhawk or the forgotten realms or mystara or dragonlance or eberron, all of which are PRACTICALLY THE FUCKING SAME because TSR (and WotC) have zero ideas about the creative boundaries to which D&D can reach.
But no one said that the point is to have the same fucking boring style of play in the same fucking boring worlds forever. Though I'm guessing that's what pisses you off?
The point is that they have the same MECHANICAL FOUNDATION, and are thus compatible. You can take stuff from my book, and put it into someone else's book, and you don't have to figure out how to change the underlying system to make it fit (or at most the change as such is just simple omission or addition).

QuoteA false equivalence You presume I wouldn't note the difference between something being OSR compatible and of the OSR play-style, I never said a d6-dice pooled played like an OSR game in the traditional sense, I merely stated it could be compatible.

Explain how to do an attack roll with a dice-pool system that would work EXACTLY like an attack in D&D, where you would not have to make any conversion calculations, and where the odds would remain in the same broad range.

QuoteIf a game is utterly capable of translating and has the same stats of Saving Throw, Hit dice,    six attributes ranging from 3-to-18, class niche protection, XP, and minimal procedures for dungeon and wilderness exploration, but it also jsut happens to use D6s for action resolution why is it suddenly not count or is discernibly different?

Look at one of my games. Let's say I have an L&D monster. Let's call him "Socrates the enormous time-wasting cunt". In my stats, they would say:
Init:+0 AC:11 MV:30' HD:1d6 Save:16 AL:N Morale:7
Attack: +0 weak argument (1d3)

Someone could INSTANTLY generate that monster in a S&W or OSE game and would have all the data they need without having to convert something or do anything.

Now let's look at the same character in your imaginary dice pool game; in that at the very least the method you roll is different, right? So that means that the method of how you devise what to roll is different. So there must be a stat that guides how many dice you roll; or multiple stats that do the same. Your statblock would look NOTHING like a standard D&D statblock. Maybe you'd still have something like "armor class" (though more likely it would be some kind of defensive dice pool, right?) or hit points (though in dice pool games you typically want to have levels of injury instead of HP), but when I say:
Socrates the cunt (+0 to hit, 1d3 damage)
no translation whatsoever is needed. If you have:
Socrates the cunt (attack pool:8 defense pool:4 Damage rating:E) that is essentially zero compatibility right?

In my system, someone could buy any of my adventures, never own my main book, and still be able to relatively easily run that adventure with whatever version of D&D they like. That's compatibility.
A dice pool attack mechanic, to be compatible, would need to do EXACTLY the same as a D20 attack roll does; and if that was the case, why the fuck would you even bother to come up with it just to do the exact same thing everyone else already knows how to do with a D20?!

It is ridiculous that you want to claim simultaneously that my games are not OSR, while wanting to make the argument that somehow a dice-pool system could be OSR.

The lengths you are going to just to try to stop the OSR from being seen as a Design School is really impressive. I wish people like you would just come out and say what their REAL motive is, instead of hiding behind these moronic types of arguments.

Quote3. Swords & Wizardry has unified Saving throws, cunt. Next?

Jesus, did someone piss in your coffee this morning or something? I disagreed with and suggested you were wrong, what's with the crass name calling?

QuoteLook at one of my games. Let's say I have an L&D monster. Let's call him "Socrates the enormous time-wasting cunt". In my stats,

Did someone back over your cat with a truck or something? Christ sorry man but you don't have to be utterly rude.

I'm not even going to read the rest at this dribble shit, cause you utterly missed the point by nitpicking the points of difference, they represent a sum total in which your games style differs, I never suggested they weren't compatible, nor was that ever my point.

I'm not, nor I suspect many people on this forum  the types of people you dealt from the Forge or Twitter, have a shred of dignity or respect at the least. sorry that the suggestion of a dice pool resolution mechanic for an OSR game was some sort of personal attack on your character or something?


ALSO I never said your games were not OSR?  if it came off that way it was me pointing out a perceived double standard, not my actual opinion on your games...

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 27, 2024, 08:22:50 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 27, 2024, 11:52:46 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 27, 2024, 10:59:08 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 27, 2024, 01:01:00 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 26, 2024, 03:49:22 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on May 25, 2024, 10:31:21 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 25, 2024, 09:59:54 AMI can't speak for the OP but I don't think point buy (or skills, or feats, or combat maneuvers) is in any way incompatible to the OSR.

When I say "compatibility with TSR" I do not mean theoretically, I'm actually running classic TSR modules and I don't want to do much conversion during the game. I also use old school monster manuals and encounter tables. This all despite of not running any TSR game (I use my own retroclone, Dark Fantasy Basic).

Of course, there are few "hard lines", since TSR contains many variations: roll high, roll low, 1d20, 2d6, 1d100, additional abilities (comeliness), race as class or separated, sci-fi aspects and entire games, NWP, WP, etc.

But the more conversion you need the farther you are.

Here is a curious example from Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/1d06tya/can_anyone_weigh_in_on_whether_our_game_is_osr_or/

Old school is comprised of more than just older TSR games. A tweaked clone of Traveler qualifies as old school IMHO.

Old School, definitely. OSR, no. OSR is based on D&D. As I pointed out, Traveller has its own third-party old-school movement these days, and that's great. But it is its own separate thing.

Why?

I know you feel obligated to repeat this often, but what benefit is there in isolating the OSR from any other game system that came out during that time? Why does it have to be D&D based only? is this some kind of One True Wayism for you? I ask, because this honestly looks like you are trying to protect some kind of marketing brand recognition you find in the acronym OSR.

In my video I already pointed out that for the OSR to mean anything actually concrete it has to be understood as a design school. That's what the OSR has really been at least since the release of LotFP (while before that it was just a reproduction of old editions and some new modules for those old editions). In order to be a design school, it has to have a framework, and that framework has to be the rules (any other framework, like genre or aesthetics would almost immediately be watered down into meaninglessness).
So you have say "the OSR is a box, within which you can be as creative as you like, but if you break outside the landmarks of that box, it is not OSR". That box is the D&D rules. You could have another box that is The Traveller Rules, or the Fantasy Trip rules, or T&T rules, or whatever. But you can't just say "that box is any old school game" or you do not in fact have a real framework.

It's like you're asking "why can't you say that impressionism is part of neo-classicism"? It's not a question of some kind of judgment, or claiming you can't appreciate both, it's just saying that the rules to create one are different from the rules to create the other. 

OK, so for a game to be OSR to you, it must be a slight variance of the D&D rules. Therefore d20 Traveller, a Traveller variant based upon slight modifications to D&D rules, is OSR. True or false?

Now, I'm bringing this up because one of the hallmarks of the OSR (at least in the beginning) was that the movement championed a DIY approach to gaming, a belief in rulings not rules, and player characters engaging with the setting instead of just pitting their numbers against the setting. None of which demands that the game be based on D&D.

Well, D20 Trav is based on 3.x, not old school D&D, so technically it would not be old school at all. And yet, on the other hand, it would still be MORE compatible with an OSR product than any other traveller game. You understand?

Unfortunately, yes.

I concede the point.

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2024, 05:23:49 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 27, 2024, 05:05:39 PM

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2024, 04:45:30 PMGreetings!

I don't understand the deep-seated need some people have in arguing about non-D&D games being part of the OSR. They aren't. The OSR is specifically based upon D&D games. The early people that started the whole "OSR" movement were specifically D&D fans. So, OSR is a movement and design school based upon D&D games.

Just get over it.

Your favourite old non-D&D game may be in fact a game, a RPG, but that does not make it part of the OSR.

This isn't difficult to understand. OSR is for D&D based games. Everything else is just some other kind of game. Roleplaying game, whatever.

Beyond that, if you are a person that doesn't like RPG's, or has a maniacal hatred for D&D, fine. Get over yourself, and go on playing whatever your game is. That's no reason to screech about D&D games, or REEE about your hatred of the OSR.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well, to answer your question, the OSR did not start out as a D&D centric box destined to become an iconic marketing brand like Pundit has decided it is on this forum. Since it is Pundit's forum, that is what it is here but it is not the same everywhere else.

Sorry if my desire to get back to the roots of the OSR acronym sounds like a screech or a REEE to you, maybe the Navy's Younger Son needs to grow a thicker skin?

Greetings!

*Laughing*! Ahh, my friend! Well, as far as I know, the early OSR beginnings were Matt Finch, OSRIC, and I suppose DCC. Even if you also think of Castles & Crusades, that is all D&D based. Before them, noone ever talked about the OSR.

Who was talking about the OSR in the early beginning years that was not D&D based?

I would also put forth that everyone I know of, game design/company wise, for example, when they talk about the OSR, it is with the clear understanding that such a game is D&D based. You know, lots of people beyond Pundit. *Laughing* I get that Pundit can *rub some people the wrong way* *Laughing*

But, Jeff, be that as it may be, the OSR is very much in the public eye as being D&D based games. I didn't make that up, my friend! It just is, you know?

Where else, or who, thinks of the OSR as NOT being based on D&D games, Jeff?

You made me choke on my coffee laughing! Ahh, yes. Time to light up my pipe and make some new coffee.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well, like you said in a secondary post, nobody knows what the OSR is in the real world and if it is the OldOSR that I know or the NuOSR that is defined here.

And good rememberances from this Squid to a Jarhead today.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 27, 2024, 11:01:28 AMThere's a huge difference between an author who wants to make sure that his game is considered within a category and therefore makes a game that actually fits in the standards of that category, and an author who wants his game to make more money and therefore falsely claims that his product is in a popular category that would sell better.

Absolutely, and if I'm looking for neither of those two things then the banner is enough to know I can move on to another product, regardless of which one the author intended.

So, this hypothetical dice pool system that could be used with products written for D&D derived OSR games without any need for conversion.  I am wondering what this system would look like and how it would work.  How, exactly, would such a system work.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 27, 2024, 08:16:35 PMYou both are wrong, the OSR started as retroclones of the D&D editions you couldn't buy. So much so those were the first retroclones and the logo was designed to mimic TSR's.

Key word bolded. OSR games started as an exercise to duplicate old TSR rules-sets in order to publish AD&D modules. They used the OGL to do so. People eventually figured out the OGL could also be finessed to make all sorts of retroclones based on Traveller, FACERIP, TFT, etc. TLG made C&C as essentially an AD&D-ified 3rd edition D&D; it counted as OSR. After a while, the OSR morphed to essentially mean TSR-based games, with B/X being the largest group of these; I'd say 90% of OSR products look more like B/X than anything else TSR ever made. C&C no longer counts as OSR, in my opinion, using this definition.

If we extend the "there were two OSRs" to cover what actually happened, then sure, it means two different things depending on who you ask. But, I was there Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago. I remember.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 27, 2024, 08:34:02 PMExcept that's a lie. What was happening in the original OSR (1st wave) movement was that they were very open about playing all kinds of old games, and making supplements for those games, and making clones of those games, but they consistently rejected any modifications that went too far from whatever their favorite one true ruleset was. The old OSR was vastly more restrictive. Innovation was treated with witch-trial like suspicion.

Today, there are literally thousands of OSR products, most of which are 2nd or 3rd wave, that is to say not directly based on ANY specific TSR era product. But all are based on the core of D&D design concepts.

Is it, though? I don't think there was any conscious effort to stick to the text strictly beyond, "We want to play old school D&D but can't find copies of the books so let's just duplicate them." That's a lot different than some draconian edict that abhorred differences. You are right that people complained about differences that were seemingly irrelevant (LL and 1st level cleric spells were a big one), but again, was this conscious or just a product of not really innovating? I don't believe people didn't want to innovate, there just wasn't any reason to at all.

I think we're talking past each other here...

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2024, 08:33:05 PMHey Brad! That is interesting. I didn't know. As I mentioned, everyone I have heard discuss the OSR--out in YouTube land--everyone talks about the OSR being based on D&D games. The only people I have heard claim something different is well, here, with Jeff and now you.

I am sure that's all you've ever thought it has been; no one who embraced the OSR DIY mindset who was cloning Traveller ever branded it as OSR, from my recollection. It was lumped into the entire "movement," but fairly early on OSR started to become a buzzword that no one could agree one until a group of individuals started to put logos on OSRIC modules and that was it. If it wasn't compatible with TSR-era D&D, it wasn't OSR.

I have no idea why Pundit is arguing this point, honestly. He should know better than anyone that the OSR brand has little to do with the original OSR.

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:21:24 AM

Quote from: SHARK on May 27, 2024, 08:33:05 PMHey Brad! That is interesting. I didn't know. As I mentioned, everyone I have heard discuss the OSR--out in YouTube land--everyone talks about the OSR being based on D&D games. The only people I have heard claim something different is well, here, with Jeff and now you.

I am sure that's all you've ever thought it has been; no one who embraced the OSR DIY mindset who was cloning Traveller ever branded it as OSR, from my recollection. It was lumped into the entire "movement," but fairly early on OSR started to become a buzzword that no one could agree one until a group of individuals started to put logos on OSRIC modules and that was it. If it wasn't compatible with TSR-era D&D, it wasn't OSR.

I have no idea why Pundit is arguing this point, honestly. He should know better than anyone that the OSR brand has little to do with the original OSR.

It's his forum, history be damned.

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:12:59 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 27, 2024, 08:34:02 PMExcept that's a lie. What was happening in the original OSR (1st wave) movement was that they were very open about playing all kinds of old games, and making supplements for those games, and making clones of those games, but they consistently rejected any modifications that went too far from whatever their favorite one true ruleset was. The old OSR was vastly more restrictive. Innovation was treated with witch-trial like suspicion.

Today, there are literally thousands of OSR products, most of which are 2nd or 3rd wave, that is to say not directly based on ANY specific TSR era product. But all are based on the core of D&D design concepts.

Is it, though? I don't think there was any conscious effort to stick to the text strictly beyond, "We want to play old school D&D but can't find copies of the books so let's just duplicate them." That's a lot different than some draconian edict that abhorred differences. You are right that people complained about differences that were seemingly irrelevant (LL and 1st level cleric spells were a big one), but again, was this conscious or just a product of not really innovating? I don't believe people didn't want to innovate, there just wasn't any reason to at all.

I think we're talking past each other here...

It's actually the core difference, as I explain in my video, between "revival" and "renaissance". Revival is going "back to the that ole-time religion", making things as conservatively as possible (often more conservative than they ever really were in the old-time). A "renaissance" is when people want to recover the old techniques and create new masterpieces with them.

So a "revival" is inherently anti-innovation while a renaissance is inherently pro-creativity, just within certain boxes.

Quote from: Brad on May 28, 2024, 09:07:12 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 27, 2024, 08:16:35 PMYou both are wrong, the OSR started as retroclones of the D&D editions you couldn't buy. So much so those were the first retroclones and the logo was designed to mimic TSR's.

Key word bolded. OSR games started as an exercise to duplicate old TSR rules-sets in order to publish AD&D modules. They used the OGL to do so. People eventually figured out the OGL could also be finessed to make all sorts of retroclones based on Traveller, FACERIP, TFT, etc. TLG made C&C as essentially an AD&D-ified 3rd edition D&D; it counted as OSR. After a while, the OSR morphed to essentially mean TSR-based games, with B/X being the largest group of these; I'd say 90% of OSR products look more like B/X than anything else TSR ever made. C&C no longer counts as OSR, in my opinion, using this definition.

If we extend the "there were two OSRs" to cover what actually happened, then sure, it means two different things depending on who you ask. But, I was there Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago. I remember.

So you agree that both of you were wrong, since both of you were saying the opposite, that the OSR DIDN'T start as Totally-NotD&D.

Then, latter people started making retroclones of OTHER systems/games, which makes those other products both retroclones AND Old School, but not OSR.

And NOW there's tons of products incorrectly lumped with the OSR rendering the label useless in DTTRPG.

I don't remember who said "classification is not right or wrong, but useful or useless".

Of course you can call anything you like "OSR", but the OSR label is a thing that exists, mostly on DTRPG.

95% or more of the time, the label means compatibility with TSR.

Just check the first 100 titles to see if my guess is accurate:

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45582_0_0_0_0

(Pundit is still number one... I'm number six today!)

The remaining 5% have a vague OSR aesthetic/sensibility (Mork Borg, Troika, etc.).

It is not useless; I use it to both buy and sell products that are compatible with TSR D&D.

I used it today, I just saw this product on sale that looks interesting:

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/349306/The-City-of-the-Red-Pox

No OSR label, probably not compatible - it is for Troika, mentioned above.

I gave other clear example enough: somente used the OSR label and got immediately corrected on DTRPG.

Yes, there are many incorrect uses, but most of the time the term has a meaning, and it means at least vaguely compatible with TSR D&D.

It is okay to argue about history/etymology, but that is how the term is currently used.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on May 24, 2024, 07:55:14 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 24, 2024, 02:38:41 AMCount down to the usual suspects intent on diluting the term until it means nothing.

Well thats what they do. The OSR has produced so many cool products that have not been tainted by woke bullshit and the woke asshats cannot stand that. They must infect every aspect of culture, and there can be no bastions of sanity left to compare to their mindless drivel.

Getting rid of woke bullshit, especially from newcomer tourists who don't even fully grasp what RPGs are?  Absolutely.  But the OSR also represents, to a lesser extent, of course, traditional RPGs from the old-school days... some of which included dice pools and whatnot. 

And the renaissance implies innovation, as Pundit said, but as Figment says, "Imagination works best when set free."  At a certain point, something can become not OSR, but the lines are blurry - and that is by design.  It's why the OSR is still a thing, and not dead as many claim.

VS