Quote from: Brad on September 06, 2023, 09:55:03 AM
You're correct here, but my point still stands: feelings are unassailable by logic. Also the whole "fetishization" of B/X is actually super amusing to me because I remember very vividly how we were called all sorts of names for playing Red Box instead of AD&D. So of course I moved to AD&D in 8th grade ASAP and we trashed the boxed sets immediately.

This whole obsession with B/X IS indeed rose colored glasses to some degree, as the number of AD&D players was astronomically higher when I was a kid. So again, you're right, but so am I: logic will not change their minds. A lot of this crap is just misremembering stuff and truly believing everyone was actually playing B/X using the AD&D books because they didn't use weapon speed and AC type. No, you were all playing AD&D, couldn't figure out that crap, so made the game simpler, and now retroactively decided it was actually B/X all along.

I think some of it is logic and emotion working together.  Our groups did mix them.  We did misread things.  We do have fond memories of it all.  There's enough distance, though, that looking at the rules closely reminds me of some of the things that chafed.  However, when I look at it from a hard-eyed rules perspective, B/X is just closer to what we would want now then AD&D is.  Back then, that wasn't necessarily true. 

Another part is that back then, it wasn't always clear how to get from A to B.  For example, we liked race and class separate more than we liked race as class.  So naturally we used the AD&D classes.  Now, I still prefer race and class separate, but were I to run it, I'd use all the things I've learned in the meantime to split race and class in the BECMI/RC rules, instead of just using AD&D. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 06, 2023, 11:09:42 AM
I think some of it is logic and emotion working together.  Our groups did mix them.  We did misread things.  We do have fond memories of it all.  There's enough distance, though, that looking at the rules closely reminds me of some of the things that chafed.  However, when I look at it from a hard-eyed rules perspective, B/X is just closer to what we would want now then AD&D is.  Back then, that wasn't necessarily true. 

Another part is that back then, it wasn't always clear how to get from A to B.  For example, we liked race and class separate more than we liked race as class.  So naturally we used the AD&D classes.  Now, I still prefer race and class separate, but were I to run it, I'd use all the things I've learned in the meantime to split race and class in the BECMI/RC rules, instead of just using AD&D.

One of the best campaigns I ever played in was AD&D with Palladium FRP classes tacked on, using Rolemaster for the combat system. No idea how the DM made it work, but he did. This whole differentiation between systems today in no way matches up to actual old school, which was basically a buffet of choices and DMs did whatever they wanted. The shift from actual referees who adjudicated games to some sort of robot who merely reads a book and applies rules has made this hobby lamer and lamer as years have gone by.

Well, I doubt a Palladium-system class would work any worse in any other system than it does in the Palladium system, so there's that...

Quote from: Brad on September 06, 2023, 12:24:38 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 06, 2023, 11:09:42 AM
I think some of it is logic and emotion working together.  Our groups did mix them.  We did misread things.  We do have fond memories of it all.  There's enough distance, though, that looking at the rules closely reminds me of some of the things that chafed.  However, when I look at it from a hard-eyed rules perspective, B/X is just closer to what we would want now then AD&D is.  Back then, that wasn't necessarily true. 

Another part is that back then, it wasn't always clear how to get from A to B.  For example, we liked race and class separate more than we liked race as class.  So naturally we used the AD&D classes.  Now, I still prefer race and class separate, but were I to run it, I'd use all the things I've learned in the meantime to split race and class in the BECMI/RC rules, instead of just using AD&D.

One of the best campaigns I ever played in was AD&D with Palladium FRP classes tacked on, using Rolemaster for the combat system. No idea how the DM made it work, but he did. This whole differentiation between systems today in no way matches up to actual old school, which was basically a buffet of choices and DMs did whatever they wanted. The shift from actual referees who adjudicated games to some sort of robot who merely reads a book and applies rules has made this hobby lamer and lamer as years have gone by.

Fond memories, of games gone by.  We all seem to have nostalgia, for the old days.  If I had only known then, what I know now.  Fond memories, indeed.

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 06, 2023, 12:35:37 PM
Fond memories, of games gone by.  We all seem to have nostalgia, for the old days.  If I had only known then, what I know now.  Fond memories, indeed.

Enjoyed it a lot.  Won't pretend that I didn't.  Have no desire to recreate it. 

Quote from: Brad on September 05, 2023, 11:31:28 AM
You're never going to convince anyone using logic, they like what they like...

Yup.

You will never reason anyone out of a position that they did not reason themselves into in the first place.

Quote from: tenbones on September 05, 2023, 01:09:17 PM
I'm going to venture this corollary...

People like what they're conditioned to "like" because of inertia. Whether that inertia is due to laziness, exposure, etc. is besides the larger point I'm going to make.

My *hyperbolic* contention is the "OSR movement" are necromantic death-cultists who are very adept at their dark-arts. It's people regurgitating their own nostalgia bombs onto a plate and re-cooking it and serving it back up to the faithful.

The mantra that B/X is the "movement" to best capture TTRPG's in some form is ludicrous to me. The reality is that the GM's and Designers that market the OSR believe that because 1) they are incentivized to do so 2) they are reactionary 3) they are intensely biased for possibly the latter and the former 4) they genuinely have fun with the system. Likely *all* of the above in some form. The issue is the people that PLAY and do not GM become the loyal faithful to this 'movement' and therefore its system(s)- not its contents. And we *rarely* talk about the contents... we always talk about the minutia of the system elements.
...
There are definitely DNA that is shared by OSR games - I'll be damned if I can figure out why using those specific systems to do the same KIND of gaming (Hexcrawling, Dungeoncrawling, Sandboxing, lots of tables) can't be done with more streamlined and better designed systems without St. Gary being invoked or one of his OSR intercessor prophets jumps in to declare heresy.

^This. Is. Truth.^

Good Game design is not static.

B/X AD&D got a lot right conceptually; but mechanically they are still a grab bag, with AD&D being an outright hot mess.

Much of B/X - AD&D could be fixed and streamlined - but they would never sell to the same crowd buying the clones...

Quote from: Brad on September 06, 2023, 09:55:03 AM

Quote from: tenbones on September 05, 2023, 01:09:17 PM
I'm going to venture this corollary...

You're correct here, but my point still stands: feelings are unassailable by logic. Also the whole "fetishization" of B/X is actually super amusing to me because I remember very vividly how we were called all sorts of names for playing Red Box instead of AD&D. So of course I moved to AD&D in 8th grade ASAP and we trashed the boxed sets immediately.

This whole obsession with B/X IS indeed rose colored glasses to some degree, as the number of AD&D players was astronomically higher when I was a kid. So again, you're right, but so am I: logic will not change their minds. A lot of this crap is just misremembering stuff and truly believing everyone was actually playing B/X using the AD&D books because they didn't use weapon speed and AC type. No, you were all playing AD&D, couldn't figure out that crap, so made the game simpler, and now retroactively decided it was actually B/X all along.

That was not my experience. I remember preferring B/X (which was not Red Box and I still have my original copies) over AD&D, and kept playing right up until my group insisted we move to AD&D. We never played AD&D with B/X we just moved over wholesale.

And it looked like this:

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 06, 2023, 01:48:53 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 06, 2023, 12:35:37 PM
Fond memories, of games gone by.  We all seem to have nostalgia, for the old days.  If I had only known then, what I know now.  Fond memories, indeed.

Enjoyed it a lot.  Won't pretend that I didn't.  Have no desire to recreate it.

Nostalgia, sells a lot of games.

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 07, 2023, 12:40:57 AM

Nostalgia, sells a lot of games.

Maybe.  Not to me it doesn't.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 06, 2023, 01:48:53 PM
Enjoyed it a lot.  Won't pretend that I didn't.  Have no desire to recreate it.

I sort of agree with you here...when I was in junior high/high school, I played the most complex shit possible. The more crap added to the game, the more rules, the more accoutrements, the better. And it was great. Now, however, I want something simple and easy to play. As much as I'm a stickler for playing AD&D BtB, most of the time whenever I run a game it's closer to AD&D with ascending AC and a lot of stuff from Castles and Crusades ported over to make the game super fast. Simple initiative, yes. No combat table? Yes.

I fondly reflect back on the good old days, but now that I actually am responsible for a mortgage, two kids, a job, etc., I just want to get on with it and play, not wallow around in game theory.

Quote from: Brad on September 06, 2023, 09:55:03 AM

Quote from: tenbones on September 05, 2023, 01:09:17 PM
I'm going to venture this corollary...

You're correct here, but my point still stands: feelings are unassailable by logic. Also the whole "fetishization" of B/X is actually super amusing to me because I remember very vividly how we were called all sorts of names for playing Red Box instead of AD&D. So of course I moved to AD&D in 8th grade ASAP and we trashed the boxed sets immediately.

This whole obsession with B/X IS indeed rose colored glasses to some degree, as the number of AD&D players was astronomically higher when I was a kid. So again, you're right, but so am I: logic will not change their minds. A lot of this crap is just misremembering stuff and truly believing everyone was actually playing B/X using the AD&D books because they didn't use weapon speed and AC type. No, you were all playing AD&D, couldn't figure out that crap, so made the game simpler, and now retroactively decided it was actually B/X all along.

Oh you're definitely right, heh that's why I said it was a corollary. What I'm aiming at for those of us that respect the past but are not slaves to it (hindsight being the motherfucker that it is) has to do with my plans in the future.

I know you can't change feelings with logic, but I want to take "clippings", if you'll allow me to use the metaphor, of those that can pull away for only a slight bit and grow something new, using what we've collectively learned over the years. Watching honest discussion get mired in decades-old silly debates that have nothing to do with what we ought to be doing. Just like D&D grew from Wargaming... we can grow TTRPG's into something rooted in the good aspects of the past, without being slaves to it. D&D as a brand will kill itself. Long live the D&D Fantasy genre as *we* knew it, and will remake it.

I'm genuinely excited about the TTRPG future. Even *if* it craters down to the 80's level of population (mildly hyperbolic) - of course it won't. The idea of rebuilding with core GM's and players coming up with good guidelines, better games, new IP's that are not directly tied to the D&D brand (even if it's tied to the genre) is a blessing to all of us. Even as we watch the rest of the pop-culture IP's of old take it on the chin, it's not the first time it has happened for some of these IP's. But we get to be there for the next golden age but it depends on us.

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 02, 2023, 03:22:58 PM
OSE has had the most forward momentum, for a while now.

[cough] Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer [cough]

Quote from: Bruwulf on September 06, 2023, 10:23:54 AM

Quote from: Brad on September 06, 2023, 09:55:03 AMA lot of this crap is just misremembering stuff and truly believing everyone was actually playing B/X using the AD&D books because they didn't use weapon speed and AC type. No, you were all playing AD&D, couldn't figure out that crap, so made the game simpler, and now retroactively decided it was actually B/X all along.

My experience, and I've heard enough people express similar experiences that I don't think it's uncommon at all, is that most tables aren't quite playing rules-as-written, even if they think they are. Whenever you you get a new player from another group, there's always at least one thing that catches them up and they find is being done wrong, because that's not how they ever did it.

It was common enough (I certainly did it in multiple groups) that about 14 years ago I wrote about it in a blog post titled "Intermediate D&D". I suspect some variant of "Intermediate D&D" was the standard back then, which is why I have a hard time taking the BrOSR guys too seriously.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on September 02, 2023, 05:39:08 PM
What Gavin Norman accomplished was to prove, definitively, that the 1981 Basic/Expert was the best expression of Dungeons and Dragons by laying it out and tightly editing it in an impeccable manner.

I'd argue Rules Cyclopedia D&D is the definitive best expression of Dungeons & Dragons. Gavin Norman stubbornly refuses to incorporate any of BECMI/RC's additions into OSE or an OSE supplement for some strange reason.

I think Adventurer Conqueror King II could take the crown. It looks like a true evolution and refinement of the Rules Cyclopedia.

To capture that spirit of "how we did it in the day" I have been thinking of taking S&W Whitebox or similar and combining it with the Arduin Trilogy to create the 1970's experience. I could use S&W Complete, or just Whitebox, but nothing else other than those two. Let the period mash-up begin!