Quote from: estar;674106Most of the vampire campaigns I ran across were run like Monsters with superpowers rather than as melodramas as the books suggested.

and the designers were famously so disgusted at their customers that they wrote the Diablerie: series of modules to ironically mock them while cashing their checks.

Quote from: CRKrueger;675299and the designers were famously so disgusted at their customers that they wrote the Diablerie: series of modules to ironically mock them while cashing their checks.

That adventure truly SUCKED.

I think it should also be acknowledged that Encounter Critical was written as a joke.

Quote from: jeff37923;675315I think it should also be acknowledged that Encounter Critical was written as a joke.

Indeed, though a joke that served as a bridge between dismissing games as 'fantasy heartbreakers' and seeing how much fun and creativity was present in those early games without the rules-glut, metaplot, and pretententious wankery that became the industry standard in the 90s.

Remember 'storygames' grew out of a joke as well.

Quote from: silva;674023Corrected for you.

Calling this "TSR-era D&D renaissance" ( = what the OSR really is) an "old school renaissance" is a disservice to the bazillion other games that came out in the 70s and early 80s whose playstyle has absolutely nothing to do with D&D, like Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Champions, Harn, En Garde!, MERP, TMNT, Twilight 2000, Villains & Vigilantes, Ghostbusters, Bunnies and Burrows, etc.

This very shit keeps getting rubbed in our faces as if it was somehow the fault of us D&D-OSR-ers. As if we had some sort of no coloured people or other game systems rule for our club.

It ain't the fucking case. If the fans of all those patently non-D&D old school games got off their asses, started doing cool stuff like retroclones of out-of-print systems or new fan-made modules for Runequest or taking Classic Traveller's rules and adapting them for fantasy gaming and decided to label all that as "OSR", we would welcome them with open arms.

But they're just not doing it, and it has nothing to do with us. I don't know whether their inaction is because these fandoms don't have the critical mass to get something started, or because they have a lack of creativity or simply because they're having their own small and obscure movement and don't want to associate with D&D - whatever it is, it's their choice, not ours.

The OSR is open and universal in that any old-school RPG is welcome. If aforementioned old-school RPGs decide not to visit, that doesn't make us any less welcoming and universal. THEY are the ones doing themselves a disservice but not having a renaissance; we're not keeping them down or outside in any way.

You are wildly misinformed Premier. Check out the thread 'where are the other love letters?' from earlier this week. Other old school games kick started a renaissance online well before D&D clones popped on the scene, and continue to be supported with vast online communities.

The OSR is a loosely-affiliated group of people who use one or more internet vehicles (email groups, messageboards, blogs, facebook, and most recently google+) to market, shill, and otherwise attempt to sell stuff we've written.   We succeed in small quantities (a few hundred or, if wildly successful, a few thousand), and we're mostly selling to each other.  The OSR is divided into cliques, factions and splinter-groups of amazingly small size along battle-lines of such extreme triviality that we make a disagreement among fashionistas about hemlines look profound.

Other characteristics of the OSR are:- (1) an obsession with feminism and particularly with portrayals of women's armour, in repetitive and immensely long discussions that never involve any women at all; (2) a passionate love affair with the gonzo, which is OSR-speak for genre-bending; and (3) the tendency of its opinion leaders to burn out, flame out, flake out and embarrass themselves hugely.

OSR games are games produced by and/or identified with the OSR.  Theoretically, they draw from or have their roots in the first wave of role-playing games from the 1970s and early 1980s.  There's no broad consensus about any other criteria.

There are two definite "pyramids" within the OSR about OSR-games.

First, there's the pyramid of old-school-ness, with the actual 1970s games at the top of the pyramid, the faithful retro-clones one tier down, and then an ever-broadening base of games that deviate further and further from the One True Gygaxian Way.

Second, there's the pyramid of hip-ness, with the games that have the most current OSR-hipster appeal at the top of the pyramid (LOTFP, ACKS, DCCRPG etc.), and then lower tiers that deviate further and further from the Ultimate Hipster Appeal.

By all the natural rules of social movements, the OSR should be fragmenting and disintegrating by now.  This is not happening because there are several important factors that keep us together.  For example, we're all united in our utter hatred of RPGnet, our love of Firefly and Doctor Who, and our vague fantasy that one day we might get to impregnate Felicia Day.

Quote from: jeff37923;675214Good writing on that one. :hatsoff:

Thank you very much - 'preciate it.

Quote from: TristramEvans;675341Other old school games kick started a renaissance online well before D&D clones popped on the scene, and continue to be supported with vast online communities.

Very true.

Quote from: P&P;675346The OSR is a loosely-affiliated group of people who use one or more internet vehicles (email groups, messageboards, blogs, facebook, and most recently google+) to market, shill, and otherwise attempt to sell stuff we've written.   We succeed in small quantities (a few hundred or, if wildly successful, a few thousand), and we're mostly selling to each other.  The OSR is divided into cliques, factions and splinter-groups of amazingly small size along battle-lines of such extreme triviality that we make a disagreement among fashionistas about hemlines look profound.

Other characteristics of the OSR are:- (1) an obsession with feminism and particularly with portrayals of women's armour, in repetitive and immensely long discussions that never involve any women at all; (2) a passionate love affair with the gonzo, which is OSR-speak for genre-bending; and (3) the tendency of its opinion leaders to burn out, flame out, flake out and embarrass themselves hugely.

OSR games are games produced by and/or identified with the OSR.  Theoretically, they draw from or have their roots in the first wave of role-playing games from the 1970s and early 1980s.  There's no broad consensus about any other criteria.

There are two definite "pyramids" within the OSR about OSR-games.

First, there's the pyramid of old-school-ness, with the actual 1970s games at the top of the pyramid, the faithful retro-clones one tier down, and then an ever-broadening base of games that deviate further and further from the One True Gygaxian Way.

Second, there's the pyramid of hip-ness, with the games that have the most current OSR-hipster appeal at the top of the pyramid (LOTFP, ACKS, DCCRPG etc.), and then lower tiers that deviate further and further from the Ultimate Hipster Appeal.

By all the natural rules of social movements, the OSR should be fragmenting and disintegrating by now.  This is not happening because there are several important factors that keep us together.  For example, we're all united in our utter hatred of RPGnet, our love of Firefly and Doctor Who, and our vague fantasy that one day we might get to impregnate Felicia Day.

You should post more.

Quote from: TristramEvans;675327Remember 'storygames' grew out of a joke as well.

I have never heard this before. At risk of thread derailment, please tell me more.

Quote from: jeff37923;675448I have never heard this before. At risk of thread derailment, please tell me more.

Well, IIRC Sorcerer was originally supposed to be a parody of what Edwards thought D&D games were like.

Nah, that was Elf or whatever it was called.

Quote from: jeff37923;675448I have never heard this before. At risk of thread derailment, please tell me more.

This would be the first story game to identify itself as an rpg. Ultimately is a drinking game that largely parodies RPGs.

Quote from: TristramEvans;675341You are wildly misinformed Premier. Check out the thread 'where are the other love letters?' from earlier this week. Other old school games kick started a renaissance online well before D&D clones popped on the scene, and continue to be supported with vast online communities.

Oh, make no mistake, I'm aware of those. Well, some of them. My point is that if they decide to run their own renaissances on their own without affiliating with the OSR in any way (and I believe it would be good to have more ties between all these revivals)... that's their call, and not something that we should be blamed for.