Quote from: jeff37923;791391This is one of the things that galls me about the OSR moniker. Classic Traveller is obviously Old School, but is not embraced by the OSR. Stars Without Number is just Classic Traveller with D&D style characters & combat, but is lauded as one of the best OSR games in existence. WTF?

Yeah, annoys me as well. One of the reasons the OSR failed, IMO.

Quote from: jeff37923;791391This is one of the things that galls me about the OSR moniker. Classic Traveller is obviously Old School, but is not embraced by the OSR. Stars Without Number is just Classic Traveller with D&D style characters & combat, but is lauded as one of the best OSR games in existence. WTF?

Because you can't run Keep on the Borderlands with Traveller.

But aside from that, the biggest reasons people play one-book SWN instead of black-book Classic Traveller boil down to:

1) Tools for building planets and societies that give the GM obvious cues for building adventures. The tag system alone is a vast amount more support than anything CT gives to the GM. Expert Traveller GMs can conjure up wonders from a multi-digit planetary code, but the rest of us like to have things spelled out a little more clearly.

2) Faction rules to help the GM keep the sector in motion around the PCs and give them obvious organizational foes, allies, and obstacles.

3) Character progression. CT has none to speak of and zero-to-hero is the favorite playstyle of a lot of old-school players.

4) Out-of-the-box compatibility with anything else that works with B/X D&D. Yes, you can play Keep on the Borderlands with it without changing anything you can't edit on the fly. This makes it a lot easier to flesh out a sandbox since you can simply yank and reskin almost anything else that OSR types are publishing.

5) At least an order of magnitude more people know and have played D&D compared to CT. A system that uses familiar frameworks and mechanics is going to have an advantage on that ground alone.

Obviously, these reasons won't apply to a lot of people. Equally obviously, it's foolish to pretend that SWN is somehow objectively better than CT. But the simple fact is that the vast majority of stuff labeled OSR is D&D-compatible, and so stuff that is also D&D-compatible is going to find a lot more network benefit from it than CT-derived material.

Quote from: SineNomine;791407Because you can't run Keep on the Borderlands with Traveller.

But aside from that, the biggest reasons people play one-book SWN instead of black-book Classic Traveller boil down to:

1) Tools for building planets and societies that give the GM obvious cues for building adventures. The tag system alone is a vast amount more support than anything CT gives to the GM. Expert Traveller GMs can conjure up wonders from a multi-digit planetary code, but the rest of us like to have things spelled out a little more clearly.

2) Faction rules to help the GM keep the sector in motion around the PCs and give them obvious organizational foes, allies, and obstacles.

3) Character progression. CT has none to speak of and zero-to-hero is the favorite playstyle of a lot of old-school players.

4) Out-of-the-box compatibility with anything else that works with B/X D&D. Yes, you can play Keep on the Borderlands with it without changing anything you can't edit on the fly. This makes it a lot easier to flesh out a sandbox since you can simply yank and reskin almost anything else that OSR types are publishing.

5) At least an order of magnitude more people know and have played D&D compared to CT. A system that uses familiar frameworks and mechanics is going to have an advantage on that ground alone.

Obviously, these reasons won't apply to a lot of people. Equally obviously, it's foolish to pretend that SWN is somehow objectively better than CT. But the simple fact is that the vast majority of stuff labeled OSR is D&D-compatible, and so stuff that is also D&D-compatible is going to find a lot more network benefit from it than CT-derived material.

I appreciate the positive spin you placed here, but you've just confirmed that OSR has been relagated to being an overused marketting term. OSR now means that any game with the label will mean that the gameplay will have the same feeling as D&D in whatever genre the game is set.

Originally the OSR embraced ALL old style games and gaming styles, then one thing or another happened and that fell apart and the OSR died quietly and became more or less an echo chamber for a handful of people while others kept making things.

Quote from: bat;791441Originally the OSR embraced ALL old style games and gaming styles, then one thing or another happened and that fell apart and the OSR died quietly and became more or less an echo chamber for a handful of people while others kept making things.

I actually think you got it backwards.

The OSR started and was at its best when it was overwhelmingly focused on TSRD&D.

The wheels started coming off when everyone and their dog tried to re-define it to include everything.

Quote from: Piestrio;791444I actually think you got it backwards.

The OSR started and was at its best when it was overwhelmingly focused on TSRD&D.

The wheels started coming off when everyone and their dog tried to re-define it to include everything.

  How much of that was connected with a shift from " 'old school' as a good way to play" as " 'old school' as the One True Way to play"?

Quote from: jeff37923;791391This is one of the things that galls me about the OSR moniker. Classic Traveller is obviously Old School, but is not embraced by the OSR. Stars Without Number is just Classic Traveller with D&D style characters & combat, but is lauded as one of the best OSR games in existence. WTF?

You have it all wrong. You're asking "Why don't the OSR people do Traveller?"

Wrong question. The right question is: "Why don't the Traveller people do OSR?"

The OSR has a large overlap (perhaps more than would be ideal) with D&D because it was the old-school D&D people who decided to put effort, time and work into the fucking thing. We've written strict retroclones, we've written loose retroclones, we're written "inspired by" games, we've gone commercial with for-sale products and/or offered up the fruits of our labour for free out of love and enthusiasm. All in all, I imagine thousands of man-hours of work have gone into "OSR products" of various stripes.

And you know why there's no Traveller OSR? Because the Traveller fans were either too lazy or too uninterested (or have their needs perfectly met by Mongoose Traveller) to put in the same amount of work. They just sit around the CotI forums doing whatever they do over there and they're very patently NOT publishing clones, inspired-by games or RPG blogs based on Traveller. (For all I know.)

There's no elitist cabal of D&D players actively sabotaging the efforts of Traveller fans to create a Traveller OSR. It's the Traveller fans themselves who just DON'T WANT TO DO IT. Same goes for the Tunnels & Trolls fans, the Runequest fans and all the others. We are not excluding them. It's them who are not interested in joining. If they did put in the work and come up with some products, I'm sure all sane OSR people would welcome them with open arms and let them slap the badge on their game.

And there's nothing the D&D people can do about this state of affairs. I mean what do you expect us to do, create Traveller OSR products by people who don't play and are not interested in Traveller? That would just as absurd as expecting Traveller players to write D&D adventures "because want them to".

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;791447How much of that was connected with a shift from " 'old school' as a good way to play" as " 'old school' as the One True Way to play"?

I must have missed that memo.

Quote from: Premier;791448You have it all wrong. You're asking "Why don't the OSR people do Traveller?"

Actually, I wasn't asking. I was pointing out the flaw.

But that is OK, you have a good rant going.

Quote from: Premier;791448Wrong question. The right question is: "Why don't the Traveller people do OSR?"

Because they want something different than just D&D in (blank).

Quote from: Premier;791448The OSR has a large overlap (perhaps more than would be ideal) with D&D because it was the old-school D&D people who decided to put effort, time and work into the fucking thing. We've written strict retroclones, we've written loose retroclones, we're written "inspired by" games, we've gone commercial with for-sale products and/or offered up the fruits of our labour for free out of love and enthusiasm. All in all, I imagine thousands of man-hours of work have gone into "OSR products" of various stripes.

And you know why there's no Traveller OSR? Because the Traveller fans were either too lazy or too uninterested (or have their needs perfectly met by Mongoose Traveller) to put in the same amount of work. They just sit around the CotI forums doing whatever they do over there and they're very patently NOT publishing clones, inspired-by games or RPG blogs based on Traveller. (For all I know.)

Most are happy with Mongoose Traveller. It does a really good job. A very liberal Fair Use policy for Traveller has helped a lot (WotC shooting themselves in the foot over D&D helped bring about the OSR). Of course, you wouldn't know that because you seem to not be interested in any RPG that strays too far from D&D.

(And actually, you should take a look. There is a lot out there for Traveller and the cross-pollination of ideas can't hurt your game.)

Quote from: Premier;791448There's no elitist cabal of D&D players actively sabotaging the efforts of Traveller fans to create a Traveller OSR. It's the Traveller fans themselves who just DON'T WANT TO DO IT. Same goes for the Tunnels & Trolls fans, the Runequest fans and all the others. We are not excluding them. It's them who are not interested in joining. If they did put in the work and come up with some products, I'm sure all sane OSR people would welcome them with open arms and let them slap the badge on their game.

This thread would suggest that the OSR label is just for those games that have the same feel as D&D, for marketting. Not saying that sales of product are a bad thing, but it is an exclusive club of D&D only that is considered part of the OSR.

Quote from: Premier;791448And there's nothing the D&D people can do about this state of affairs. I mean what do you expect us to do, create Traveller OSR products by people who don't play and are not interested in Traveller? That would just as absurd as expecting Traveller players to write D&D adventures "because want them to".

No. I really don't think that playing Keep on the Borderlands would be as fun if you were using Traveller.

(And you should go look at DriveThru RPG under the system heading of Traveller, there is already a bunch of stuff there.)

Quote from: Premier;791448Wrong question. The right question is: "Why don't the Traveller people do OSR?"

The following are my OBSERVATIONs.

The Classic Traveller community never experienced a break in continuity. After the release of MegaTraveller they used the Traveller Mailing List, the early internet to continue to produce new material. It helped that GDW was friendly towards non-commercial efforts.

Along with the fact that Traveller was both about rules and a setting, the Third Imperium. So while classic rules were Out of Print, the Third Imperium continued to be developed. Developed in a way that was broadly compatible with the earliest material for classic Traveller.

Then Mongoose released their edition of Traveller, basically a cleaned up classic Traveller, just as the d20 tide receded. Which shifted everything into a "renewed" support mode.

Runequest in the form of Basic Roleplaying had a similar lack of continuity. It wasn't as clean as the history of Traveller but useful stuff was still being released through out the 90s and early 00s. Finally Mongoose, again, kicked the door open with their version of Runequest ulimately going with a completely open system in the form of Legends.

The Runequest IP holders being willing to license,.the OGL Legends, and the continued existance of Chaosium means that Runequest experienced an independent renaissance of its own.

Other older games like Tunnels & Trolls, The Fantasy Trip did not benefit directly from the OSR but benefited from the same forces that propelled the OSR forward. Namely the ease of communication fosted by the Internet and the expansion of computer technology to allow individuals or small groups to pursue sophisticated projects.

Quote from: Piestrio;791444I actually think you got it backwards.

The OSR started and was at its best when it was overwhelmingly focused on TSRD&D.

The wheels started coming off when everyone and their dog tried to re-define it to include everything.

Absolutely not, in the beginning many of us worked together to promote all kinds of gaming, genres and to encourage people actually playing. There is absolutely nothing at all wrong with people playing any old style game, whether it is OD&D from 74 to Barbarians of Lemuria, which is even more simplified to classic Traveller.

No, the OSR did not fall apart when people tried to re-define it, the OSR died when people tried to lead it. Leadership is nonsensical and those who would lead are setting themselves up for a bit of disappointment, however it is fun to watch them try.

Quote from: TristramEvans;791399One of the reasons the OSR failed, IMO.

Quote from: bat;791477...the OSR died when people tried to lead it...

WTF? The OSR 'failed'?!?  The OSR 'died'?!?

When did these things happen?  :confused:

As far as I can tell, the OSR is very much alive, and has been astonishingly successful.

Quote from: Premier;791448You have it all wrong. You're asking "Why don't the OSR people do Traveller?"

Wrong question. The right question is: "Why don't the Traveller people do OSR?"

The OSR has a large overlap (perhaps more than would be ideal) with D&D because it was the old-school D&D people who decided to put effort, time and work into the fucking thing. We've written strict retroclones, we've written loose retroclones, we're written "inspired by" games, we've gone commercial with for-sale products and/or offered up the fruits of our labour for free out of love and enthusiasm. All in all, I imagine thousands of man-hours of work have gone into "OSR products" of various stripes.

And you know why there's no Traveller OSR? Because the Traveller fans were either too lazy or too uninterested (or have their needs perfectly met by Mongoose Traveller) to put in the same amount of work. They just sit around the CotI forums doing whatever they do over there and they're very patently NOT publishing clones, inspired-by games or RPG blogs based on Traveller. (For all I know.)

There's no elitist cabal of D&D players actively sabotaging the efforts of Traveller fans to create a Traveller OSR. It's the Traveller fans themselves who just DON'T WANT TO DO IT. Same goes for the Tunnels & Trolls fans, the Runequest fans and all the others. We are not excluding them. It's them who are not interested in joining. If they did put in the work and come up with some products, I'm sure all sane OSR people would welcome them with open arms and let them slap the badge on their game.

And there's nothing the D&D people can do about this state of affairs. I mean what do you expect us to do, create Traveller OSR products by people who don't play and are not interested in Traveller? That would just as absurd as expecting Traveller players to write D&D adventures "because want them to".

I read this and really laughed. There must be a lot of third and fourth generation 'OSR' people who never knew in the beginning there were groups and we made fliers for people to distribute for their old style games (yes, T&T, yes, Traveller, yes, RuneQuest, yes The Fantasy Trip, etc), that was during the days of the OSR. These are post-post-OSR times now. The OSR was defeated fairly easily early on by those who wanted control. How do you control an organic toolbox? You don't. But then, that is why there truly is no OSR now, which maybe is as it should be: Go out there and game! Nobody cares about people's theories on is 'x' better than 'y' or is this OSR or that, just get some people together, roll some funny shaped dice, and have fun.

In the beginning I enjoyed the idea of the OSR and thought it was going places, and many great games and products were created and then the OSR fell and fell hard and it is no longer necessary as an entity or even a large group, it fulfilled its purpose long ago and that is evident in the flourishing smaller groups out there, just because the OSR is gone, that doesn't mean that people aren't still gaming the way they want and it served a purpose in its time.

Quote from: bat;791480...then the OSR fell and fell hard and it is no longer necessary as an entity or even a large group, it fulfilled its purpose long ago and that is evident in the flourishing smaller groups out there, just because the OSR is gone, that doesn't mean that people aren't still gaming the way they want and it served a purpose in its time.

:huhsign:

On my planet, the OSR is alive and thriving.

Quote from: Akrasia;791479WTF? The OSR 'failed'?!?  The OSR 'died'?!?

When did these things happen?  :confused:

As far as I can tell, the OSR is very much alive, and has been astonishingly successful.

As a movement, the OSR died years ago. I game in an old school way, running S&W fairly often from coast to coast, but I have nothing to do with the OSR and I know many other people who feel the same way, we just game. The OSR was a movement in the beginning, a group with goals of spreading information and getting people to play, now it is beyond all of that and the basic notions are gone, leaving viable ways for people to continue gaming however they want to, which is a pretty decent legacy.