Quote from: Bobloblah;866459Was there? My only connection to the broader community was via the house organs of Dragon and Dungeon. I wasn't online much until the mid-90s, and didn't do much online involving D&D until probably the end of the 90s. It never seemed to me that there was much content with broad reach until far more recently, with the lowering of the barrier to desktop publishing and POD really opening the floodgates.

In the 1990s T$R in their infinite wisdom were doing their best to squelch fan-produced Internet material for AD&D, but there was still a lot of it about, eg the Netbooks. Compared to the OSR the quality was generally very poor, though.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866458And yet back in the day when TSR was putting out official material, there was still plenty of impetus among gamers to produce their own stuff and share it amongst themselves.

Beyond what I have created for use within my own games, I post a weekly RPG video every Saturday. Most of them are just ideas tossed out for other people to use. Some of them are reviews. This is all done free of charge. The OSR community does not hold some monopoly on creative output. Pathfinder may have more commercial material, though often small scale operations, because it is a single unified system. Rather that the OSR movement which is scattered in two dozen directions. I even review OSR material occasionally. Though I would never use it in an OSR game. I played 'old school' when it was the only school. I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

Quote from: S'mon;866497In the 1990s T$R in their infinite wisdom were doing their best to squelch fan-produced Internet material for AD&D, but there was still a lot of it about, eg the Netbooks. Compared to the OSR the quality was generally very poor, though.

They wielded the BanHammer like an Olympic athlete. Left a bad taste in my mouth to this day. The OGL was the greatest gift the RPG community ever received.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501The OSR community does not hold some monopoly on creative output.'

Which is an assertion put forth by ... (looking back) ... no one. All that's been said is that there seems to be a good deal more of it going on among OSR gamers than among fans of modern systems.

Quote from: TetsuboThough I would never use it in an OSR game. I played 'old school' when it was the only school.

Yeah, we know, because you never miss a chance to remind everyone of this, even when it has less than nothing to do with the topic at hand. Your "I played D&D back in the 70s! but I've since seen the light, and so should you!" schtick has gotten tiresome.

QuoteI have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

The same parroted bullshit line we've been hearing since forever. Fuck you too.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866458And yet back in the day when TSR was putting out official material, there was still plenty of impetus among gamers to produce their own stuff and share it amongst themselves.

That not the same as producing a formal published products which what I believe you were talking in regards to the OSR.

If sharing material what you are talking about then you need to check out the Pathfinder blogs, forums, Facebook, and Google Plus. There are plenty of people sharing material and their number probably an order of magnitude larger than the OSR. The same with the D&D 5e community.

What makes the OSR different is the structure of hobby in regards of to formally published material.

Pathfinder and D&D 5e  both have a central focus. Traveller has three focuses (Far Future, Mongoose, SJ Games), Runequest roughly has a limited number of focuses (Chaosium (BRP), OpenQuest, Mongoose (Legends), Design Mechanism, and Moon Publishing). And recently Chaosium/Design/Moon came to together. GURPS has SJ Games, Harn has Columbia Games and Kelestia Productions, Fantasy Age/Dragon Age has Green Ronin and so on.

In contrast the OSR has dozens of publishers and among them half-dozen or so where producing OSR material is a full-time focus. Lamentation, Gobliniod, Frog God, Goodman Games, Sine Nominae, etc. This is unique in the industry and hobby to have so many publishers targeting the same games with roughly equal levels of influence.

In theory this could change if Wizard decides to fully support classic D&D. But that not likely to happen outside of a few special products like the reprints.

Back in the 90s there was a fair amount of unapproaved self-published things floating around filesharing, IRC and usenet, along with the usual bootleg things.  The availablity of out of print things through bootleg scans had a fair amount of impact on rediscovery of some games and various related items.  Folks don't like to talk about the omni-present bootlegs, but they had some impact on renewed popularity of various older games.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866468I didn't say it was within broad reach. That came with the spread of the internet. But back in the 70s and 80s there were any number of amateur fanzines going around.

Well today blogs and forums are viable options to zines. Again there is plenty of creative content sharing just not as much formal publishing proportionally as there is in the OSR.

Quote from: estar;866507Well today blogs and forums are viable options to zines. Again there is plenty of creative content sharing just not as much formal publishing proportionally as there is in the OSR.

  I'm not even sure about the latter. There are almost as many Pathfinder products on OBS as there are "Unofficial D&D" ones--and Paizo doesn't sell through OBS.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

See, this is the kind of remark that makes you look like nothing more than an arrogant, ignorant tool. Collectively, the OSR is about the size of a second-tier RPG publisher, and has a rather significant audience. To suggest that the majority of people who continue to play OSR games, never mind publish OSR material, are merely there for the nostalgia (hint: nostalgia doesn't make things fun if they aren't) is colossally stupid.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501I played 'old school' when it was the only school. I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

I was born in 1981 and I didn't really start roleplaying until 2003 when D&D 3.5e was out (which was my first RPG book purchased). For me, old school is most certainly not nostalgia, just the way that I find more fun to play, and which I came to years after I started.

When I compare back to all the time I spent in 3e and 4e, thinking about character optimisation, trying to work out what was good, what was bad (I wasn't very good at it), planning characters levels in advance -- I can barely remember any of the actual games I played, only a few moments that arose which usually had little to do with the rules.

Last time I tried to play Pathfinder, I had a moment of nostalgia, thinking "oh yes, I remember this..." but quickly realised why I gave up on all that complexity and too much definition.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866514See, this is the kind of remark that makes you look like nothing more than an arrogant, ignorant tool. Collectively, the OSR is about the size of a second-tier RPG publisher, and has a rather significant audience. To suggest that the majority of people who continue to play OSR games, never mind publish OSR material, are merely there for the nostalgia (hint: nostalgia doesn't make things fun if they aren't) is colossally stupid.

Use more invectives, that'll teach him.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;866542Use more invectives, that'll teach him.

You're clearly new here if that mild rebuke offends your delicate sensibilities. I wouldn't recommend disagreeing with anyone else on the site, as you might not survive the experience. As for Tetsubo, I'm fairly certain he can both speak for, and defend, himself.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866503Which is an assertion put forth by ... (looking back) ... no one. All that's been said is that there seems to be a good deal more of it going on among OSR gamers than among fans of modern systems.


Yeah, we know, because you never miss a chance to remind everyone of this, even when it has less than nothing to do with the topic at hand. Your "I played D&D back in the 70s! but I've since seen the light, and so should you!" schtick has gotten tiresome.


The same parroted bullshit line we've been hearing since forever. Fuck you too.

Have a happy holiday season.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866543You're clearly new here if that mild rebuke offends your delicate sensibilities. I wouldn't recommend disagreeing with anyone else on the site, as you might not survive the experience. As for Tetsubo, I'm fairly certain he can both speak for, and defend, himself.

I wasn't offended. I was lightheartedly pointing out how little that accomplished.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;866679I wasn't offended. I was lightheartedly pointing out how little that accomplished.

Ah, yes... because pointing out when someone is being a jerk never modifies behaviour, or draws anyone's attention to it. Please.