Quote from: bat;791496Bah, there are many that would gladly point out that I am not part of the OSR because I do not conform to this or that or bow to the right people. I do my thing, if something from my blog works in a game, AWESOME, if not, sorry, I tried. I did what I did for others, not for profit, not for accolades, not for anything else than to be of help. I cannot be a part of something where a few people are dismissive, narcissistic and/or controlling of others, that is not what I signed up for originally. Either we all pitch in, try our best to get along and play fair or we don't play together. I'll live.

This is similar to Pundit accusations. And I will ask you the same questions I asked him.

Who are you talking about?  And what happened specifically?

Both Akrasia and myself have stated a very liberal definition of who is part of the OSR. You play classic D&D you are part of the OSR. I have stated several times there are no gatekeepers and why.

And I am well aware there are assholes in the OSR. I have personally run into people dismissive of my own work like the Majestic Wilderlands. Personally I just ignore them as they are obviously not my customers as the phrase goes.  Well not my customers as far as my Majestic Wilderlands. Some seem happy with Points of Light and Blackmarsh.

Quote from: estar;791498You said something interesting that I highlighted in bold. How did the OSR become something you didn't believe in?  Who were the individual or groups involved? And what effect they had on you being able to produce, use, or talk about materials for classic D&D, old school, and similar games?

I will not name the name, it will only start a pointless fracas, some snide, dismissive, sanctimonious remarks will be issued towards me, and probably a glib, hipster quote as well.

Quote from: bat;791501I am not saying that the style of gaming is dead by a long shot, but the term OSR is no longer needed-come on, you have people starting up companies like Mark with his Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen module, did he need the OSR? Nope, all of the basics are already there. The toolbox was always there, and the OSR, in its time, encouraged what we have now, which is great, but I don't see it as a fluid thing as much as people see the interest is out there to share their ideas.

It will be useful as long as it remain useful as a shorthand. Right now it encompasses a lot of different things in people's mind. The most common use is a shorthand for everybody playing, promoting, or publishing classic D&D. You can see this at RPGNow.

It is also a shorthand for a design philosophy. Because it started with classic D&D it brought along with it how people played classic D&D and designed things for classic D&D. Because of none of this dependent on using the classic D&D rules it became part of the OSR and gave life to the "and similar games" portion of the OSR movement.  For example Dungeon Crawl Classics, Blood & Treasure or Castles & Crusades. None of which is based on a particular D&D classic edition but explictly supports how people commonly played classic D&D.

Classic D&D was never just a game of dungeon crawls. That may have been is most common use but it was certainly used for other types of campaigns and adventures. Because the OSR from the get go had a diverse cast and based on open content this meant things like James Raggi Lamentation of the Flame Princess and my own Majestic Wilderlands will be developed and become part of the OSR. Eventually this gets extended to other genres and spreads out into the edges merges into the larger tabletop roleplaying hobby.

For example Dunegon World, Torchbearer, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, have their take on elements that the OSR focuses on.

The OSR has grown to the point that 'what it is' depends your personal experience and who you dealt with.  However it core remains those playing, promoting, and publishing for classic D&D.

And if OSR becomes so diffuse that it become useless for marketing, or any other type of shorthand then another term will arise from the community of people playing, promoting, or publishing for classic D&D.

I personally don't consider this a likely fate of OSR for several reasons.

The term was too general, and an adjective too desirable, to be useful.

People wanted a moniker to describe a particular thing they were doing, without any judgement being passed on other gaming also happening during that general era.  But old-school is desirable adjective real estate, and immediately came the "but how can 'x' not also be called old school" or "I've been playing just as long as you, so what elitist snobbery of you to apply this label I find positive and exclude my play style".

And since those arguments have merit, the tent bloated as to be meaningless as a term of distinction, as evidenced by no three that self-identify agreeing.

I think if the label chosen was more "Champaign", and less "Sparkling Wine", it could have had more positive effects with far less squabbling.

Quote from: bat;791506I will not name the name, it will only start a pointless fracas, some snide, dismissive, sanctimonious remarks will be issued towards me, and probably a glib, hipster quote as well.

I understand, however without that then all I can say you are wrong about the OSR. What happened was you happen to encountered a slice with a bunch of assholes labeling themselves as members of the OSR.

With the good news being  they have little or no power over what projects you choose to pursue. That if you ever need help there are plenty of others, including myself, that will help you with aid or advice if you let us know.

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.

Many people think the same thing about The Forge.


And about Steampunk.

I'm not saying people aren't still creating and playing games that are/were/could be included in the "OSR" umbrella (of course most of us were already and never stopped), I'm saying it's no  longer a "renaissance". Its just the hardcore adherents doing what they've always done. Just like "Goth" is over, but you can still meet goths.


The Pundit is basically Disco Stu at this point.

Quote from: RPGPundit;791320OSR: a design philosophy of creating systems, settings and adventures that fit within the boundaries of old-school mechanics and concepts; that is, either directly utilizing features that were in existence in the period before the advent of 2nd edition AD&D; or features that, in spite of not having historically existed at that time, could have existed in that period without the addition of material or design concepts that are clearly the product of subsequent ideas or later theories.

People playing the "OS or Not?" game blow fuzes over stuff that was current before the 1st ed. DMG hit the shelves.

The whole Maliszewski-ish predicate is bollixed. The OSR is not "a design philosophy" in the first place, which is why attempting to define it so is a soup sandwich.

The OSR is movement among fans of TSR-era D&D - including AD&D 2nd Ed - to produce new material for it as well as derivative spinoffs.

Quote from: jhkim;791385Yeah, I find that phrasing weird, especially with the timing of 2e in 1989. There were definitely mechanics that didn't exist yet in 1989, but couldn't exist?

By 1989, Dragonlance was already well under way, and there were plenty of games that put story at the forefront. Ars Magica has a rotating GM structure and player control of plot via Whimsy Cards.

Ars Magica and Whimsy Cards were quite separate products! I encountered the cards in the context of D&D, and certainly did not receive a deck as part of my purchase of AM.

QuotePrince Valiant also had such a structure. There were also plenty of dissociated mechanics-heavy systems that parallel the complaints about D&D4 - parts of Champions were probably the most well-known of these, but there were plenty of others.

En Garde! (1975): Social status is the goal? No skirmish-level miniatures rules? New School!

Tunnels & Trolls (1975): Wizards in armor! Spell Points! Buff stat gains each level! What is this, some kind of fantasy game? New School! 5th ed. (1979): Saving Rolls start to look suspiciously like a general system, and the new rule is no xp for treasure. Newer school!

Empire of the Petal Throne (1976) and various articles on Metamorphosis Alpha and such in The Dragon: Skills, a setting and society.

Traveller (1977): Skills and at least an implied society: the now not-so-new idea that adventurers can be more than just antisocial vagrants wandering subterranean mazes.

Melee (1977): OMG,  grid-based combat! What self-respecting grognard would touch a hexgrid with a 2-3 soak?

Chivalry & Sorcery (1977): Okay, now Hanns Johst is unlocking his Browning. The 2nd (1983) edition added skills and some philosophical ramblings.

RuneQuest (1978): Geez, by now maybe we should call this stuff "old school".

Quote from: estar;791475The 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.

In short, if there is - and there might not be  - a significant division into hostle  "schools" in some other game community, they don't necessarily have anything to do with this D&D vs. that D&D. Projecting your own discontents on others is a way of confusion, not understanding.

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

That's absurd. Of course you can. Well, maybe not you, personally (I don't know you, maybe there's some special reason you couldn't), but I could easily as could any GM barring any aforementioned "special reasons".

Quote from: TristramEvans;791542That's absurd. Of course you can. Well, maybe not you, personally (I don't know you, maybe there's some special reason you couldn't), but I could easily as could any GM barring any aforementioned "special reasons".

The point, I think, is that Traveller is a remarkably different rules set. Mutant Future is even closer to D&D (specifically the 1981 ed.) than was its Gamma World inspiration, and I gather the same holds even more in a comparison of Stars Without Number  vs. Classic (or Mega or Marc Miller's T4 or Mongoose) Traveller.

Quote from: TristramEvans;791542That's absurd. Of course you can. Well, maybe not you, personally (I don't know you, maybe there's some special reason you couldn't), but I could easily as could any GM barring any aforementioned "special reasons".

How would you propose to do that on the fly? Keeping in mind, of course, that CT is predicated on the assumption that PCs will never substantially increase in personal prowess, while D&D assumes that any given PC may eventually become an order of magnitude more capable than they are at the start of the campaign.

Quote from: SineNomine;791546How would you propose to do that on the fly? Keeping in mind, of course, that CT is predicated on the assumption that PCs will never substantially increase in personal prowess, while D&D assumes that any given PC may eventually become an order of magnitude more capable than they are at the start of the campaign.

"Rulings not rules"

All the system does is provide a means of randomization and task resolution.

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.

Pretty much, although I'd like to acknowledge one of estar's posts in this thread about Traveller, BRP, and the like not really having the same needs as old-school D&D players.

The communities around other old school games are not in the position of having their game in continuous publication, but changing so much over the editions, and with active discouragement against playing in older ways. The OSR is just a rebellion against that. "Hey, old D&D is not necessarily bad!" Tunnels & Trolls, Call of Cthulhu and Runequest barely changed, Traveller seems to maintain small communities around each version without much of the "playing older Traveller is WRONG!" mindset, etc.

Quote from: Akrasia;791481:huhsign:

On my planet, the OSR is alive and thriving.

People have been saying "The OSR is dead" since it first became a thing. If not before. I guess the theory is, if you repeat something three times, it's true.

Quote from: Phillip;791531The whole Maliszewski-ish predicate is bollixed. The OSR is not "a design philosophy" in the first place, which is why attempting to define it so is a soup sandwich.

The OSR is movement among fans of TSR-era D&D - including AD&D 2nd Ed - to produce new material for it as well as derivative spinoffs.

I'd also say it's a rebellion against making D&D-ish (Class and Level Exploration Fantasy) games more gamist or narrativist. It's a rejection of system mastery. It's definitely not a design philosophy, because it's too fragmented: everyone has their own ideas about what old school D&D features were the best and which should be emphasized. We've got OSR people making games more freeform, those making clean, streamlined, simple versions of D&D, those making highly-detailed economic systems, those focusing on improve, those focusing on extensive prep... as long as they're going back to the old ways in some way, it doesn't matter what their "design philosophy" is: they are OSR.

Quote from: TristramEvans;791548"Rulings not rules"

All the system does is provide a means of randomization and task resolution.

That's all well and good, yes, but how exactly is that going to work at the table when you have the CT black book in one hand and Keep on the Borderlands in the other? What exactly is the GM supposed to do for magic-using character creation, spellcasting enemies, and the adventure's basic assumption that some humans are literally four or five times harder to kill than an average healthy person? What does the GM say when the first player says, "Okay, I want to be a magic-user with a Sleep spell."?

The system doesn't only provide randomization and task resolution, it provides systematic assumptions about how this game world works. CT assumes flat PC power curves in a world where their human and humanoid enemies are mildly-inflected versions of the same. D&D assumes drastic PC power curves in a world where the opposition ranges from kobolds to dragons. You rapidly reach a point where D&D-based resources are useful only in the sense that they give you some basic inspiration for making a completely rewritten version for CT.