I fully admit that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the OSR space and initially pigeon holed it as basically old school D&D (pre-2e) tweaked a bit in terms of game mechanics when I first heard about it during the OGL debacle.  Rolling for the six archetypal attributes instead of point buy, d20 core resolution mechanic, rolling for HP instead of max, more randomness at character generation and advancement compared with modern D&D/games, class based structure, etc.  Since then, I've seen broader descriptions of the tone/intent of the games as well as the genres they occupy but I'm curious as to which games are or claim to be OSR (obviously a nebulous subjective term) that deviate significantly from BECMI D&D style mechanics. 

I've known about Five Torches Deep for about a year now and that was my first indication that things could stray a bit further with 5e style mechanics added in that title.  More recently (as in TODAY!), I discovered that Cairn 2e didn't even use the six core attributes which shocked me.  I haven't really looked beyond that so far but it got me thinking about how far you could deviate from BECMI mechanics and still be mechanically OSR.  Does anyone else have examples of games that stray just as far or even further in their rules?  Do any games go so far as to use a different primary mechanic other than the d20 resolution system?  Has the OSR always been or more recently morphed into more of a gameplay feel/gameplay design goals movement?  I'm genuinely asking as, again, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the space even in terms of simply skimming through the rules let alone actually playing them.

There's a whole class of games that I usually see being called Nu-SR, where they're rules light games going for an OSR vibe, but but are mechanically different enough to not be OSR by the strict definition. Cairn is probably the most popular, but there's a bunch. A short list in no particular order:

--The Black Hack (and all its many variants)
--Index Card RPG
--EZd6
--The Hero's Journey
--Into the Odd
--Whitehack
--Mork Borg
--Knave
--Mothership
--Sharp Swords and Sinister Spells

Honestly, it's an incredibly fuzzy classification of games. Pretty much anything that's rules light and sort of low-powered gets lumped in there. I've even seen more story-game type games like Dungeon World and Blades In the Dark thrown in there.

I think the most different games which most people here would still call OSR would be Kevin Crawford's games, Stars Without Number/Wolves of God/Worlds Without Number, etc. They still use AC, Hit Die, the recognizable classes/level system, six attributes, etc., but the 2d6 core mechanic is a departure. You could argue for Dungeon Crawl Classics with the dice chain mechanic, too.

Quote from: RNGm on February 02, 2025, 10:26:10 AMI fully admit that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the OSR space and initially pigeon holed it as basically old school D&D (pre-2e) tweaked a bit in terms of game mechanics when I first heard about it during the OGL debacle.  Rolling for the six archetypal attributes instead of point buy, d20 core resolution mechanic, rolling for HP instead of max, more randomness at character generation and advancement compared with modern D&D/games, class based structure, etc.  Since then, I've seen broader descriptions of the tone/intent of the games as well as the genres they occupy but I'm curious as to which games are or claim to be OSR (obviously a nebulous subjective term) that deviate significantly from BECMI D&D style mechanics. 

I've known about Five Torches Deep for about a year now and that was my first indication that things could stray a bit further with 5e style mechanics added in that title.  More recently (as in TODAY!), I discovered that Cairn 2e didn't even use the six core attributes which shocked me.  I haven't really looked beyond that so far but it got me thinking about how far you could deviate from BECMI mechanics and still be mechanically OSR.  Does anyone else have examples of games that stray just as far or even further in their rules?  Do any games go so far as to use a different primary mechanic other than the d20 resolution system?  Has the OSR always been or more recently morphed into more of a gameplay feel/gameplay design goals movement?  I'm genuinely asking as, again, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the space even in terms of simply skimming through the rules let alone actually playing them.

As the guy that made the TARGA Yahoo Group and flyers and was involved since 2006, TARGA became the OSR and the idea was to get people to play an older style of game, NOT just TSR/D&D. RQ2? OSR. Older Tunnels & Trolls? OSR. Original Traveller? OSR. RIFTS? It is older and keeps on going, it might be one of the few that is not easy to categorize. Don't believe me about this? Ask Raggi, he was right there in the thick of it from the start. Victor Raymond organized conference calls that many of us were on discussing these issues.

Its interesting because there is almost two axis in this way, doctrine and structure, most of the games people call Nu-SR tend to fall in doctrine purists while being structural radicals, games like Maze Rats, Knave, Cairn, etc. they play like any old-school OSR game but use a different suite of mechanics.

This is in contrast to the games I consider doctrinal radicals but structural purists, games like Invisible College, Operation White Box, Gangbusters B/X, these are games that have mechanics almost entirely compatible with TSR era D&D, but who's genre and assumptions of play are just radically different despite this fact.

Retroclones sit at the center of the graph, being doctrine purists and structural purists, games like Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, OSE, S&W, so on and so forth, these are  compatible in a mechanical sense and have the same assumptions of play as the things they are clones of.

Quote from: ForgottenF on February 02, 2025, 12:28:18 PMThere's a whole class of games that I usually see being called Nu-SR, where they're rules light games going for an OSR vibe, but but are mechanically different enough to not be OSR by the strict definition. Cairn is probably the most popular, but there's a bunch. A short list in no particular order:

--The Black Hack (and all its many variants)
--Index Card RPG
--EZd6
--The Hero's Journey
--Into the Odd
--Whitehack
--Mork Borg
--Knave
--Mothership
--Sharp Swords and Sinister Spells

Honestly, it's an incredibly fuzzy classification of games. Pretty much anything that's rules light and sort of low-powered gets lumped in there. I've even seen more story-game type games like Dungeon World and Blades In the Dark thrown in there.

I think the most different games which most people here would still call OSR would be Kevin Crawford's games, Stars Without Number/Wolves of God/Worlds Without Number, etc. They still use AC, Hit Die, the recognizable classes/level system, six attributes, etc., but the 2d6 core mechanic is a departure. You could argue for Dungeon Crawl Classics with the dice chain mechanic, too.

Thanks.  Maybe due to my own ignorance but I've looked at some of those over the past year (the dozens of systems I've skimmed through or watched videos about blend in together frankly) and put them in the more traditional (mechanically speaking) OSR/early D&D camp like DCC and Black Hack.  I don't know if I'm fully incorrect in that first impression but it felt like it from reading the character creation and core rules (though obviously not the tone/setting/asthetics).  Since posting, I've discovered Worlds Without Number as well which you mentioned and it says it's OSR but uses the 2d6 system so I'll be reading through and watching stuff on that later this afternoon.   I think that definitely qualifies as broadening what might qualify as OSR mechanically speaking.  Not specific to any games in particular but it does feel from my mostly outsider looking in perspective that some games are using it as a marketing gimmick moreso than any true adherence to either the tone or the rules common in the subniche.

Quote from: bat on February 02, 2025, 12:45:21 PMAs the guy that made the TARGA Yahoo Group and flyers and was involved since 2006, TARGA became the OSR and the idea was to get people to play an older style of game, NOT just TSR/D&D. RQ2? OSR. Older Tunnels & Trolls? OSR. Original Traveller? OSR. RIFTS? It is older and keeps on going, it might be one of the few that is not easy to categorize. Don't believe me about this? As Raggi? He was right there in the thick of it from the start. Victor Raymond organized conference calls that many of us were on discussing these issues.

Fair enough and I appreciate the early intent reference.   Would you say that the meaning in more plebian terms has morphed into something different in the almost two decades since?   I have to admit that I chuckled at the reference of Rifts being OSR as a former longtime player.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on February 02, 2025, 01:00:14 PMIts interesting because there is almost two axis in this way, doctrine and structure, most of the games people call Nu-SR tend to fall in doctrine purists while being structural radicals, games like Maze Rats, Knave, Cairn, etc. they play like any old-school OSR game but use a different suite of mechanics.

This is in contrast to the games I consider doctrinal radicals but structural purists, games like Invisible College, Operation White Box, Gangbusters B/X, these are games that have mechanics almost entirely compatible with TSR era D&D, but who's genre and assumptions of play are just radically different despite this fact.

Retroclones sit at the center of the graph, being doctrine purists and structural purists, games like Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, OSE, S&W, so on and so forth, these are  compatible in a mechanical sense and have the same assumptions of play as the things they are clones of.

Thanks as it's easy for a n00b like myself to mush them all together under one umbrella.   I suppose I'm looking specifically for the first category of structural radicals but doctrinal purists.  By doctrinal purists, do you mean adhering to general playstyles, tone/feel, and overall gameplay assumptions of old school games of the late 70s/early 80s?

Quote from: RNGm on February 02, 2025, 01:49:30 PM

Quote from: Socratic-DM on February 02, 2025, 01:00:14 PMIts interesting because there is almost two axis in this way, doctrine and structure, most of the games people call Nu-SR tend to fall in doctrine purists while being structural radicals, games like Maze Rats, Knave, Cairn, etc. they play like any old-school OSR game but use a different suite of mechanics.

This is in contrast to the games I consider doctrinal radicals but structural purists, games like Invisible College, Operation White Box, Gangbusters B/X, these are games that have mechanics almost entirely compatible with TSR era D&D, but who's genre and assumptions of play are just radically different despite this fact.

Retroclones sit at the center of the graph, being doctrine purists and structural purists, games like Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, OSE, S&W, so on and so forth, these are  compatible in a mechanical sense and have the same assumptions of play as the things they are clones of.

Thanks as it's easy for a n00b like myself to mush them all together under one umbrella.   I suppose I'm looking specifically for the first category of structural radicals but doctrinal purists.  By doctrinal purists, do you mean adhering to general playstyles, tone/feel, and overall gameplay assumptions of old school games of the late 70s/early 80s?

That wouldn't be a bad way of defining it.

Quote from: RNGm on February 02, 2025, 01:44:19 PM

Quote from: bat on February 02, 2025, 12:45:21 PMAs the guy that made the TARGA Yahoo Group and flyers and was involved since 2006, TARGA became the OSR and the idea was to get people to play an older style of game, NOT just TSR/D&D. RQ2? OSR. Older Tunnels & Trolls? OSR. Original Traveller? OSR. RIFTS? It is older and keeps on going, it might be one of the few that is not easy to categorize. Don't believe me about this? As Raggi? He was right there in the thick of it from the start. Victor Raymond organized conference calls that many of us were on discussing these issues.

Fair enough and I appreciate the early intent reference.  Would you say that the meaning in more plebian terms has morphed into something different in the almost two decades since?  I have to admit that I chuckled at the reference of Rifts being OSR as a former longtime player.

I believe that's what the group was saying. I still chat with Victor Raymond on FB regularly.

Still, I don't think that's where the OSR movement ended up. Many games of my 1980s youth like Champions/Hero System, Call of Cthulhu, Ars Magica, Paranoia, and James Bond 007 don't seem to be within OSR territory, as it has evolved.

I'm not complaining about that. Those games were very different from old-school D&D, so it would be hard to include them all under the same umbrella.

But I do think there is a false impression that the old days were all of the same style of gaming. In Different Worlds #10 (October 1980), Glenn Blacow postulated four basic types of RPG players: "Roleplaying",
"Story Telling", "Powergaming", and "Wargaming". His descriptions of Story Telling gamers isn't exactly the same as modern story gamers, but it has a lot of overlap.

Quote from: RNGm on February 02, 2025, 01:39:57 PM...it says it's OSR but uses the 2d6 system...

Just FYI, one of the combat resolution systems in Chainmail (which was used in OD&D for combat) used 2d6.  So 2d6 is actually even more OSR than B/X or AD&D clones with d20 rolls...

Quote from: RNGm on February 02, 2025, 10:26:10 AMHas the OSR always been or more recently morphed into more of a gameplay feel/gameplay design goals movement?  I'm genuinely asking as, again, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the space even in terms of simply skimming through the rules let alone actually playing them.

I been involved with the OSR from pretty much the beginning. What the OSR has always been about is what interests the people involved.

I wrote this back in 2009
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/07/old-school-renaissance.html

QuoteTo me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It about going back to the roots of our hobby and see what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

The OSR's success is due to logistics. Thanks to the work of Matt Finch, Stuart Marshall, and Chris Gonnerman, many people learned how to write and publish their creative vision within the time they have for a hobby. Not just in terms of getting a work out there using the Internet and print on demand, but also how to legally use beloved IP, specifically classic Dungeons & Dragons.

It started with classic D&D because, from the late 1990s, there was a substantial community of hobbyists who were fans of its mechanics and themes. In the D20 era, several companies made their name with slogans like "Old edition feel with 3rd edition rules." And from the year 2000 the internet allowed older editions fans to meet, talk, and start producing material on a limited scale and scope.

The other things that needs to be understood is that the older RPGs that were the most popular behind classic D&D never lost support from their parent company. Runquest was still around in the form of Basic Roleplaying from Chaosium.

Traveller was just as much about the Third Imperium as the rules. Between Traveller 20, GURPS Traveller, and the Mongoose Traveller 1e there was never a fan driven drive to support it independently of the IP holder.

But for classic D&D because of 3rd edition the only support those editions enjoyed was the one provided by the fans.

Then in the mid 2000s, Troll Lords started working on Castle & Crusades. While successful for Troll Lords, it didn't go far enough in the minds of others as a rebirth of AD&D 1e. In addition the whole project made other people like Chris Gonnerman realize if you take the d20 SRD strip it of new mechanics the result was fairly close to classic D&D.

So within a year of each other OSRIC was written and released by Marshall and Finch, and Basic Fantasy was released by Gonnerman. By 2007 to 2008 it sunk in that the two were not going to get sued into oblivion by Wizards of the Coast. Also Print on Demand services like Lulu, and PDF storefronts like RPGNow came into their own. All this factors combined to cause the number of folks publishing and share material for classic D&D to skyrocket.

The term OSR came about because of forums discussing what was going on. Which was described as a Old School Renaissance/Revival/Ruckus. But what really caught out was the OSR initials. Because it eluded to TSR in a way that was fun to play with. As can be seen by all the OSR logos that came out over the years.

However, what didn't catch on was any type of centralized organization like TARGA. Nor did the OSR develop dominant publishers. Why? Because of the logistics of the OSR allowing many different creative visions to be realized and often flourish.

The "hack" that Finch, Marshall, and Gonnerman used was usable by everybody. Sure there was a line but thanks to some well-publicized missteps from the D20 era most folks, including myself, knew how to stay clear of them. Then later when the number of retro-clones multiplied there was plenty of examples one could look at as well. All of this was due to the fact that the d20 SRD was published under the OGL.

Combined with the distribution network enabled by the internet, the low capital costs of print on demand gave the young OSR a pathway to grow and to ensure it would never be dominated by a single creative voice.

So what about Mork Borg, ShadowDark, DCC RPG and other systems that sometimes get lumped under the OSR.

Keep in mind despite the tendency to oversimplify things, most folks involved the OSR have more interests than classic D&D. So the early OSR is not just about classic D&D. It is more accurately described as about classic D&D and other RPGs that interest those involved.

Then as time as went on, new folks took advantage of the available open content, the internet, digital technology, and print on demand, and implemented their own creative ideas involving using classic D&D themes was different types of mechanics. Or taking classic D&D mechanics and adapting them to different themes like Kevin Crawford's body of work.

However because of the enduring popularity of classic D&D mechanics combined with classic edition theme the bulk of what labeled OSR remains centered on the classic edition.

So what does this mean for you?

Well it depends, are you looking to run campaigns involving classic editions themes and/or mechanics? Or are you looking to publish or share material you write involving classic edition themes and/or mechanics?

Speaking for myself, my favorite system is GURPS. But to be fair I ran my last campaign of GURPS back in 2014. These days when it comes to fantasy, I still use the same setting I used for decades, the Majestic Wilderlands, but the rules I used have been either Fantasy AGE (a few years ago), D&D 5e, or my Majestic Fantasy RPG based on OD&D in the form of Finch's Swords & Wizardry.. When I run games at conventions, I have been only using my Majestic Fantasy RPG.

The reason for this because I like sharing and publishing the stuff I write. And what I like to write about is my setting, sandbox campaigns, and sandbox adventures. Since I started with AD&D 1e back in the day, since I stuck with things like dungeons even I used systems like GURPS, it wasn't a stretch for me to use classic D&D after the OSR debuted.

It started as "Why not? It will be something I won't have to explain and thus allow me to focus the bulk of the book on what I really want to share."

The only reason I ended up with my own RPG is that I have been doing this since 2006 and found that with all my ideas and house rules, I had something that I could share in its own right. It also helped to have my own RPG regarding the few sales I got from selling to local game stores and conventions.

So for me to help you what is it you would like to be doing? Just running campaigns? Publishing stuff? That will allow me to give better advice.

The Black Hack games are not OSR. 

There're a roll under system, player facing (you roll to attack NPCs, but when an NPC attacks you it's a different roll to defend).

Consumables are tracked using a saving throw and progressively decreasing dice sizes when you fail.

Armor is not a target number (Armor Class).  It's extra hit points.

Magic looks like D&D style Vancian style spell slots at first glance, but it actually is just single digit magic points divided up into spell ranks.  You can cast the same spell as many times as you have points for that rank.

The only common rules are six ability scores created using 3D6, and characters have hit points. 

To me that's a big enough departure for the games using these rules to be their own category.

Quote from: RNGm on February 02, 2025, 01:44:19 PMFair enough and I appreciate the early intent reference.   Would you say that the meaning in more plebian terms has morphed into something different in the almost two decades since?   I have to admit that I chuckled at the reference of Rifts being OSR as a former longtime player.

I believe that as TARGA became the OSR it had the same intention for a while, yet over the years it has morphed to mean TSR/early D&D to most people, which to me is sad. And hey, RIFTS has been around since '89, if you don't use the revised Ultimate Edition...I do, but you don't have to.

Quote from: estar on February 02, 2025, 03:25:01 PMSo for me to help you what is it you would like to be doing? Just running campaigns? Publishing stuff? That will allow me to give better advice.

Eventually publishing but for now it's the equivalent of a couple digital napkins worth of material (which is apparently enough to raise millions on kickstarter if you have the right hairline *cough* MCDM!).   I like the ideas behind OSR in terms of the goals of the games, the feel of the sessions, and the general asthetic but not necessarily the mechanics that achieve them.  I just didn't know if I could feasibly end up calling whatever comes out the other end OSR (and obviously I'd have to wait to actually flesh out my ideas to actually try!) in a cart before the horse situation.   I appreciate the informative post and I only cut out the meat of it so as not to quote the entire thing.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on February 02, 2025, 07:24:45 PMThe Black Hack games are not OSR. 

There're a roll under system, player facing (you roll to attack NPCs, but when an NPC attacks you it's a different roll to defend).

Consumables are tracked using a saving throw and progressively decreasing dice sizes when you fail.

Armor is not a target number (Armor Class).  It's extra hit points.

Magic looks like D&D style Vancian style spell slots at first glance, but it actually is just single digit magic points divided up into spell ranks.  You can cast the same spell as many times as you have points for that rank.

The only common rules are six ability scores created using 3D6, and characters have hit points. 

To me that's a big enough departure for the games using these rules to be their own category.

Changing the core mechanic is one of the criteria I was asking about since I'm looking for games that stretch the definitions.  Player facing rolls (like rolling defense by players instead to hit by the GM) is another that I planned on using which would deviate further from B/X style gameplay.  Thanks for pointing that out as I'll have to take another look at that!  Is White Hack also player facing?   I would add though that the author considers it OSR for what it's worth...

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/255088/the-black-hack-second-edition

"The Black Hack Second Edition
For Old-School Revival (OSR)"