Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PM
I agree with much of what you said, but I'd make a few additional distinctions, and I think we disagree about the ultimate definition of the OSR.

There are still a lot of people who starting playing old games back when they were the current edition, and haven't stopped. Though back in the early aughts they were largely invisible to the internet, because they didn't have much of a presence on the web. One of the few places where they gathered was Dragonsfoot, but that was just a small part of a much larger community.

They predate the OSR, and don't necessarily know about the OSR. So I'd never call them OSR. They're just old school gamers.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PM
The OSR was started by players of D&D third edition, who got tired of the current edition, and wanted to revert back to the fun they had with previous editions. The first thing they rallied around was Castles & Crusades, which is basically AD&D with the core mechanics stripped out and replaced by third edition-style mechanics. But there were some personality differences, and the ones who were to found the OSR split with C&C and went off to create OSRIC. But those players are distinct from the ones who never stopped playing the older editions. Instead, the OSR was founded by people had made the jump to third edition, and then went back. Many also had some experience with other experimental games from the 90s and early 00s.

I was there involved with many of the group you mentioned. Mostly to talk about and promote my hexcrawl stuff like Points of Light and Sandbox campaigns. The only specific names were things like Castles and Crusades, OSRIC, Basic Fantasy. Specific places where people met like Dragonsfoot, Knights and Knaves and so on.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PMThe OSR grew out of OSRIC, and along the way changed pretty dramatically. One thing it did was fold in a lot of older players, especially luminaries from back in the day, which resulted in some of the original group of gamers who never stopped playing the older editions publishing newer things. This brought some of the formerly web-invisible players into visibility, and helped encourage them to publish, or at least to publish more polished materials for a wider audience. The OSR became a thing to rally around and identify with, and a place to share and promote. So there are original old school gamers who fall under the general rubric of the OSR.

Nobody started the OSR. You are choosing to use the label in a specific way to highlight the work of a group of specific. Many other including myself adopted the term as a shorthand for those who play, promote, and publish (or share) for classic editions of D&D. It got a major boost when it was adopted as a name for a Lule storefront that aggregated (with author's permission) a bunch of classic D&D related material including my own Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PM
But there are still significant numbers of old school players who aren't part of the OSR, in any real way. They may not even be familiar with the term, if their gaming circle is small.

Except that I don't use OSR to describe those who publish or share classic D&D material.  The fact that people like yourself think that it is a description of a movement are frankly igorant of its genesis.

Several things started to happen when it;s use started spreading between 2008 and 2010. First many took umbrage at the use of Old School in the term. Accusing folks of using of think that the only "Old School" RPG were classic D&D edition. Second, people became confused over the fact there were dozens of people actively involved in just publishing (and even more playing or promoting). Nobody was the face of the OSR in the way Paizo is the face of Pathfinder. Pinnacle is the face of Savage World and so on.

So they kept trying to pin it down and saying the OSR is about this or that when it was really what they were seeing was the collective effort of dozens working independently of each other. Many of my earliest blogs post were about this misconception due to the fact my focus was different with my work with the Majestic Wilderlands, and sandbox campaign.

The closest was OSRIC but you have to understand OSRIC was meant to preserve AD&D 1e 'as is'. Thus many of us working with the classic editions including myself didn't find it particularly useful for our efforts. Instead people gravitated to more open systems like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord. 
And other thing about OSRIC that it was known due to the fact it took the brunt of the early criticism of it being an illegal ripoff. Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games was particularly critical of it.

The OSR didn't start with OSRIC it started when people opted not to play the latest edition. It didn't a need a label of any type until people realized that

1) There a lot more people still playing the classic editions then they thought. This occurred circa 2000
2) We can do a lot more than we thought we could with the d20 SRD as open content and this occurred around 2006 .

Once that happened OSR happened to be the term adopted and it was in widespread use by 2010.

My choice when I adopted it back in the day was to consistently to refer to the entire hobby who did something with one of the classic editions of D&D. I don't limit to hobbyist who kept playing, or those who took up playing later. Or to those who self-publish, or even those who create and promote open content.  If you do something that can be tied to one of the classic editions of D&D congrats you are part of the mess called the OSR in my view.

Quote from: Mistwell on March 03, 2022, 12:09:42 PM
I have been eyeing Old School Essentials and I gotta say, that book looks pretty appealing. 5e is fine for my games, and it's fine to introduce my daughter to D&D to a certain extent, but I cut my teeth on Holmes Basic and it seems to me at least possible my daughter would do better with fewer rules and more room to figure things out on her own that Old School Essentials might bring.

You should check out some of the Dolmenwood stuff, not sure how old your daughter is but the setting is a whimsical and sometimes dark enchanted forest.

Quote from: Slambo on March 03, 2022, 01:06:51 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on March 03, 2022, 12:09:42 PM
I have been eyeing Old School Essentials and I gotta say, that book looks pretty appealing. 5e is fine for my games, and it's fine to introduce my daughter to D&D to a certain extent, but I cut my teeth on Holmes Basic and it seems to me at least possible my daughter would do better with fewer rules and more room to figure things out on her own that Old School Essentials might bring.

You should check out some of the Dolmenwood stuff, not sure how old your daughter is but the setting is a whimsical and sometimes dark enchanted forest.

Thanks. I'd never heard of Dolmenwood but it does look very much in the pocket of stuff I think she'd like.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 11:24:04 AMOther don't like the OSR because "they" (rarely specified) had committed one or more hobby or industry sin and thus it fake, bunk, etc., etc. The Pundit is notorious for using "they" without naming specifically who they are talking about. This thread has numerous examples of this usage.

Unfortunately "they" is a term that often comes up in online and even face to face conversation that's sometimes difficult to avoid. The problem with the usage of "they/them" is that, while not helpful, it's often the only reference that we can realistically fallback on, since the stuff we might be referring to may have happened a long time ago (sometimes decades), or involve numerous people we might not remember, including random communications with anonymous people scattered online or people that might not even be relevant to the discussion or known by anyone else involved (such as people we know IRL).

Even when it involves conversations online a Google search might not provide anything relevant as examples of what we mean, since there might be hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of articles, forum threads and/or social media posts discussing topics related to any keyword we might possibly use. So it becomes difficult or perhaps impossible to provide anything other than vague allusions to they/them when discussion those subjects.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 12:56:16 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PM
I agree with much of what you said, but I'd make a few additional distinctions, and I think we disagree about the ultimate definition of the OSR.

There are still a lot of people who starting playing old games back when they were the current edition, and haven't stopped. Though back in the early aughts they were largely invisible to the internet, because they didn't have much of a presence on the web. One of the few places where they gathered was Dragonsfoot, but that was just a small part of a much larger community.

They predate the OSR, and don't necessarily know about the OSR. So I'd never call them OSR. They're just old school gamers.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PM
The OSR was started by players of D&D third edition, who got tired of the current edition, and wanted to revert back to the fun they had with previous editions. The first thing they rallied around was Castles & Crusades, which is basically AD&D with the core mechanics stripped out and replaced by third edition-style mechanics. But there were some personality differences, and the ones who were to found the OSR split with C&C and went off to create OSRIC. But those players are distinct from the ones who never stopped playing the older editions. Instead, the OSR was founded by people had made the jump to third edition, and then went back. Many also had some experience with other experimental games from the 90s and early 00s.

I was there involved with many of the group you mentioned. Mostly to talk about and promote my hexcrawl stuff like Points of Light and Sandbox campaigns. The only specific names were things like Castles and Crusades, OSRIC, Basic Fantasy. Specific places where people met like Dragonsfoot, Knights and Knaves and so on.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PMThe OSR grew out of OSRIC, and along the way changed pretty dramatically. One thing it did was fold in a lot of older players, especially luminaries from back in the day, which resulted in some of the original group of gamers who never stopped playing the older editions publishing newer things. This brought some of the formerly web-invisible players into visibility, and helped encourage them to publish, or at least to publish more polished materials for a wider audience. The OSR became a thing to rally around and identify with, and a place to share and promote. So there are original old school gamers who fall under the general rubric of the OSR.

Nobody started the OSR. You are choosing to use the label in a specific way to highlight the work of a group of specific. Many other including myself adopted the term as a shorthand for those who play, promote, and publish (or share) for classic editions of D&D. It got a major boost when it was adopted as a name for a Lule storefront that aggregated (with author's permission) a bunch of classic D&D related material including my own Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 12:02:32 PM
But there are still significant numbers of old school players who aren't part of the OSR, in any real way. They may not even be familiar with the term, if their gaming circle is small.

Except that I don't use OSR to describe those who publish or share classic D&D material.  The fact that people like yourself think that it is a description of a movement are frankly igorant of its genesis.

Several things started to happen when it;s use started spreading between 2008 and 2010. First many took umbrage at the use of Old School in the term. Accusing folks of using of think that the only "Old School" RPG were classic D&D edition. Second, people became confused over the fact there were dozens of people actively involved in just publishing (and even more playing or promoting). Nobody was the face of the OSR in the way Paizo is the face of Pathfinder. Pinnacle is the face of Savage World and so on.

So they kept trying to pin it down and saying the OSR is about this or that when it was really what they were seeing was the collective effort of dozens working independently of each other. Many of my earliest blogs post were about this misconception due to the fact my focus was different with my work with the Majestic Wilderlands, and sandbox campaign.

The closest was OSRIC but you have to understand OSRIC was meant to preserve AD&D 1e 'as is'. Thus many of us working with the classic editions including myself didn't find it particularly useful for our efforts. Instead people gravitated to more open systems like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord. 
And other thing about OSRIC that it was known due to the fact it took the brunt of the early criticism of it being an illegal ripoff. Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games was particularly critical of it.

The OSR didn't start with OSRIC it started when people opted not to play the latest edition. It didn't a need a label of any type until people realized that

1) There a lot more people still playing the classic editions then they thought. This occurred circa 2000
2) We can do a lot more than we thought we could with the d20 SRD as open content and this occurred around 2006 .

Once that happened OSR happened to be the term adopted and it was in widespread use by 2010.

My choice when I adopted it back in the day was to consistently to refer to the entire hobby who did something with one of the classic editions of D&D. I don't limit to hobbyist who kept playing, or those who took up playing later. Or to those who self-publish, or even those who create and promote open content.  If you do something that can be tied to one of the classic editions of D&D congrats you are part of the mess called the OSR in my view.

At this point, I think we strongly disagree, and I'm going to throw the ignorant slur right back at you, because you seem to have a myopic view.

The OSR refers to a specific movement, that started in a particular time and among a particular group of people, and which has spread and grown over the years. While the term took a while to settle, and has become more encompassing than it was in the past, treating it as a generic term that applies whenever people think of older editions, makes it so general it becomes almost worthless as a descriptor. There were certainly multiple disparate threads that coalesced into the movement, OSRIC was a focal point, and I'm not sure how you can dispute it. It had a greater influence than C&C, Project 74/Basic Fantasy, DF, and other earlier examples. It was the precedent that other retro-clones followed, and established the basic principles that they either adopted or flouted. This is what allowed the publication of third party materials, and the topics they discussed inspire the growth of the blogosphere. S&W was the result of one of the authors of OSRIC taking some of the lessons from OSRIC, but doing something rather different, by exploring 0e and the lost Gygaxian playstyle propagandized in the Primer, with a particular interest in the imaginative style of play. That focus on 0e became the focus of much of the activity of the OSR, before attention shifted toward B/X. The Lulu storefront was, at best, a very minor event, and quite late in the timeline.

In fact, you seem to be admitting much of this in your 2 points. Who used the OGL to do something with the SRD? While rules can't be copyrighted, so a rewritten version of older games would have always been legal, nobody did anything (at least since the Mayfair/etc. lawsuits in the 1980s). Partly this was because fans were more interested in making fan material than commercializing it, but much of it was worry about the compliance requirements and the threat of nuisance lawsuits. Nobody wanted to be the guinea pig. But the OGL gave a bit of a shield, and the d20 boom, especially as they transitioned from d20 branded games to games that just used the OGL, provided both precedents and a large body of practical experience in compliance. Marshall, Finch, and the other knights n knaves behind OSRIC took that, hammered out the legalities with lawyers and jurisdictions and worrying about the legal status of numbers in a table. That's what gave later clone authors like Proctor the courage to follow in their steps. 2006 was a turning point, and that was because of OSRIC.

The earlier 1999/2000 turning point where old school fans start to organize and people started to turn away from current editions was Dragonsfoot, and the reaction to third edition, as I mentioned. But those were pre-OSR. C&C was another interim step, in between those two. So were some of the other Troll Lord publications, or Necromancer's, which were an attempt to adapt old school sensibilities to d20, rather than abandoning third edition entirely.

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 03, 2022, 02:18:17 PM
Unfortunately "they" is a term that often comes up in online and even face to face conversation that's sometimes difficult to avoid. The problem with the usage of "they/them" is that, while not helpful, it's often the only reference that we can realistically fallback on, since the stuff we might be referring to may have happened a long time ago (sometimes decades), or involve numerous people we might not remember, including random communications with anonymous people scattered online or people that might not even be relevant to the discussion or known by anyone else involved (such as people we know IRL).

I think it fine to use they in regards to a specific group or company like Wizards or Pinnacle. But with the OSR I find it more problematic is it now hundreds of individuals making decisions for whatever reasons they see fit. I am that category as well. I have worked with folks on projects but mostly I do my own thing in the matter I best see fit.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
At this point, I think we strongly disagree, and I'm going to throw the ignorant slur right back at you, because you seem to have a myopic view.

Interesting, considering my history blogging and publishing.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
The OSR refers to a specific movement, that started in a particular time and among a particular group of people, and which has spread and grown over the years.

You are welcomed to try to define the OSR that way. But like so many before you will find it just one definition among many others. My definition also is just one among a sea of definition.

Another issue with your definition is that while PDF, Blog, Forums predated 2006, the use of PDFs and especially print on demand didn't hit it stride until the mid 2000s. Without Basic Fantasy and OSRIC, I still think we would have seen growing tide of supplemental material for older editions like adventure and setting. Like I did with Points of Light, one can use minimal stats that has no where near the risk that Basic Fantasy and OSRIC assumed when they were published. This was already happening prior to 2006.

But the release of Basic Fantasy and OSRIC in 2006, accelerated what would been a far slower process. And classic D&D had a large enough fanbase to provide a critical mass of people willing to devote a considerable amount of their hobby time to self-publishing, or promotion. And there were more than enough people for folks to find and play with. Especially for things like conventions.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
While the term took a while to settle, and has become more encompassing than it was in the past, treating it as a generic term that applies whenever people think of older editions, makes it so general it becomes almost worthless as a descriptor.

It always been worthless as a descriptor. There are two things that my Bat in the Attic line up share in common with James Raggi's Lamentation of the Flame Princess lineup. We both base our mechanics off an adapted edition of classic D&D. We both are self-publishers taking advantage of print-on-demand and PDF distribution over the internet. Except our path diverge quality with LoftFP quickly moving into print runs and traditional distribution. While I did not. Creatively our work have little in common with each other.

You don't have to believe me just look here and see how many use OSR as a mark. Aside from the fact we all opted to be included DriveThruRPG's OSR Category, very few works use OSR or a OSR Logo as part their marketing.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=45582_0_0_0_0&src=fid45582

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
There were certainly multiple disparate threads that coalesced into the movement, OSRIC was a focal point, and I'm not sure how you can dispute it.

I didn't dispute it. I said previously and in other places that OSRIC and Basic Fantasy were critical to showing fans of the classic edition that they could provide 95% of the support a traditional publisher could for a system. However it largest impact was to amplify existing trends. It wasn't until 2010 that the publishing of clones and near clones took off.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
It had a greater influence than C&C, Project 74/Basic Fantasy, DF, and other earlier examples.

Basic Fantasy by Chris Gonnerman was equally critical. What it lacked was the notiority that OSRIC gained when it was attacked by people in the industry like Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
The Lulu storefront was, at best, a very minor event, and quite late in the timeline.

You missed the part where I said the storefront was crucial in popularizing the term. Of course stuff was already happening by then. That why folks were coming up with umbrella terms of which OSR was just one candidate.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
2006 was a turning point, and that was because of OSRIC.

and Basic Fantasy.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
or Necromancer's, which were an attempt to adapt old school sensibilities to d20, rather than abandoning third edition entirely.

Which I was also involved with.

Look, I been writing about this for a long time. And it still out there for anybody to read.

I am the guy who document the first recorded use of Old School Renaissance in 2009.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/where-hell-old-school-renaissance-come.html

Explained to people how the OSR works and it still relevant today in 2009.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/those-who-do-and-old-school-renaissance.html

I still get people who tell me that this helps them understand the possibilities of work with the classic editions.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/07/old-school-renaissance.html

I been pretty consistent over the year with my whole More the merrier attitude as to what people should be doing in the OSR.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-osr-ought-be-doing.html

A short history I wrote in 2013.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-short-history-of-old-school.html

The one time I tried to predict what was going to happen in the OSR (I was wrong and never bothered with doing this again).
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/12/trends-in-old-school-renaissance.html

And the OSR is a mess (and that is a good thing) from 2010.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/07/old-school-renaissance-is-mess.html

I could go diving into my Enworld and Necromancer Games forums posts that predate my blog. But I think I made my point.

The OSR isn't a movement, it isn't a thing. It is a mess resulting from the decisions of hundreds on what to do with the material. There are some critical points (C&C, OSRIC, BASIC Fantasy) and larger societal development (like the Internet) that played a crucial role in opening people's eyes to the possibilities. But then we got the same thing that happened after the Tower of Babel, a everybody went off in their own direction, some in groups, some by themselves. United only by the fact that their subsequent work can be traced back something found in one of the classic editions of D&D.

Other RPGs, other older RPG had their own trajectory. Largely because there was a single dominant company who still published something close to the original. The closest thing is Traveller and Cepheus. That resulted from Mongoose bungling their 3rd party licensing for Mongoose Traveller 2e. Now without a dominant publisher, Cepheus is charting it own course.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 03:19:20 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 03, 2022, 02:18:17 PM
Unfortunately "they" is a term that often comes up in online and even face to face conversation that's sometimes difficult to avoid. The problem with the usage of "they/them" is that, while not helpful, it's often the only reference that we can realistically fallback on, since the stuff we might be referring to may have happened a long time ago (sometimes decades), or involve numerous people we might not remember, including random communications with anonymous people scattered online or people that might not even be relevant to the discussion or known by anyone else involved (such as people we know IRL).

I think it fine to use they in regards to a specific group or company like Wizards or Pinnacle. But with the OSR I find it more problematic is it now hundreds of individuals making decisions for whatever reasons they see fit. I am that category as well. I have worked with folks on projects but mostly I do my own thing in the matter I best see fit.

Yeah, I'm starting to see how difficult it can be to generalize about the OSR given how broad, disparate and poorly defined it is. And how little consensus there seems to be about whether it's even a "movement" or not.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 04:30:10 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
At this point, I think we strongly disagree, and I'm going to throw the ignorant slur right back at you, because you seem to have a myopic view.

Interesting, considering my history blogging and publishing.

Interesting, that you think that makes you an unbiased observer.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 04:30:10 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
The OSR refers to a specific movement, that started in a particular time and among a particular group of people, and which has spread and grown over the years.

You are welcomed to try to define the OSR that way. But like so many before you will find it just one definition among many others. My definition also is just one among a sea of definition.

Another issue with your definition is that while PDF, Blog, Forums predated 2006, the use of PDFs and especially print on demand didn't hit it stride until the mid 2000s. Without Basic Fantasy and OSRIC, I still think we would have seen growing tide of supplemental material for older editions like adventure and setting. Like I did with Points of Light, one can use minimal stats that has no where near the risk that Basic Fantasy and OSRIC assumed when they were published. This was already happening prior to 2006.

But the release of Basic Fantasy and OSRIC in 2006, accelerated what would been a far slower process. And classic D&D had a large enough fanbase to provide a critical mass of people willing to devote a considerable amount of their hobby time to self-publishing, or promotion. And there were more than enough people for folks to find and play with. Especially for things like conventions.

It's not "my" definition, in any real sense. I'm describing the way I've seen it used and seen it evolve, over the years. I don't think it's possible or desirable to narrow it down too much, but we can observe trends. Your definition seems to be an outlier, mostly popping up in very casual use. And I'm also arguing that your definition is less useful. It's so broad it's basically synonymous with old school, which makes the term redundant, and doesn't help distinguish what makes it unique.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 04:30:10 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
While the term took a while to settle, and has become more encompassing than it was in the past, treating it as a generic term that applies whenever people think of older editions, makes it so general it becomes almost worthless as a descriptor.

It always been worthless as a descriptor. There are two things that my Bat in the Attic line up share in common with James Raggi's Lamentation of the Flame Princess lineup. We both base our mechanics off an adapted edition of classic D&D. We both are self-publishers taking advantage of print-on-demand and PDF distribution over the internet. Except our path diverge quality with LoftFP quickly moving into print runs and traditional distribution. While I did not. Creatively our work have little in common with each other.

You don't have to believe me just look here and see how many use OSR as a mark. Aside from the fact we all opted to be included DriveThruRPG's OSR Category, very few works use OSR or a OSR Logo as part their marketing.

How is any of that relevant? The OSR has always been about people doing what they want to do. Pointing out that there is a great deal of diversity and a rejection of conformity is the point of the OSR.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 04:30:10 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 02:20:20 PM
There were certainly multiple disparate threads that coalesced into the movement, OSRIC was a focal point, and I'm not sure how you can dispute it.

I didn't dispute it. I said previously and in other places that OSRIC and Basic Fantasy were critical to showing fans of the classic edition that they could provide 95% of the support a traditional publisher could for a system. However it largest impact was to amplify existing trends. It wasn't until 2010 that the publishing of clones and near clones took off.

I don't think providing support was an important factor. In fact, OSRIC had basically no direct support. There was no marketing budget, no supplement treadmill, nothing like that. What it did was provide an example of what could be done, and enunciate a very clear set of guiding principles. It created the template for the later retro-clones. I do think it's interesting that most of the guiding principles have since been thoroughly ignored by the wider OSR, but they were very influential at the time.

If you're talking about a critical mass of third party publishers, I think that's your bias seeping in again. That took a while to emerge, and wasn't a big factor at this point. It wasn't what made OSRIC important. In fact, OSRIC was quickly eclipsed by other games, like Labyrinth Lord, once the third party supplements started to be produced in large numbers. Partly, this because they were resolutely non-commercial and didn't try to get into distribution, like LL. Partly, it was their insistence on fidelity to the source material, which meant they weren't constantly publishing new material. And finally, there was a shift toward Basic games.

I also don't agree that Basic Fantasy was anywhere near as influential. It was the pseudo-clone the least people were talking about, in the early years. It was even derided by may for not being faithful enough. It wasn't until sentiment changed in favor of personal tweaks, and attention shifted toward B/X, that it became more popular. I think it's more an example of the little engine that could, because while it's never been a headliner, more and more people have come to appreciate its simplicity, its author's dedication, and the community that grew up around it. Castles & Crusades was far more influential.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 04:30:10 PM
Look, I been writing about this for a long time. And it still out there for anybody to read

[snip]

I could go diving into my Enworld and Necromancer Games forums posts that predate my blog. But I think I made my point.

I've been following the OSR for at least as long.

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 04:30:10 PM
The OSR isn't a movement, it isn't a thing. It is a mess resulting from the decisions of hundreds on what to do with the material. There are some critical points (C&C, OSRIC, BASIC Fantasy) and larger societal development (like the Internet) that played a crucial role in opening people's eyes to the possibilities. But then we got the same thing that happened after the Tower of Babel, a everybody went off in their own direction, some in groups, some by themselves. United only by the fact that their subsequent work can be traced back something found in one of the classic editions of D&D.

Other RPGs, other older RPG had their own trajectory. Largely because there was a single dominant company who still published something close to the original. The closest thing is Traveller and Cepheus. That resulted from Mongoose bungling their 3rd party licensing for Mongoose Traveller 2e. Now without a dominant publisher, Cepheus is charting it own course.

The OSR is a movement that's made from the mess of decisions made by hundreds and thousands of people making their own riffs on material, sharing what they like, researching, supporting each other, passionately defending various things, and creating an eclectic synergistic mass that's part community, part artform, part promotional platform, and part a bunch of other things.

That's what movements are. Or if you don't like the word movement because you think it necessarily implies some degree of unified organization, feel free to use another. But that's not how I've been using it.

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 03, 2022, 05:17:34 PM
Yeah, I'm starting to see how difficult it can be to generalize about the OSR given how broad, disparate and poorly defined it is. And how little consensus there seems to be about whether it's even a "movement" or not.

The good news is that the foundational materials is open to those with the time and interest to with as they see fit. And with digital technology being what it is, a great deal can be done within the time one has for a hobby.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 06:11:55 PM
Interesting, that you think that makes you an unbiased observer.

I have stated my opinions of course I have bias. But more importantly I outlined why I hold these opinion leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions as to the accuracy of my opinions.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 06:11:55 PM
It's not "my" definition, in any real sense. I'm describing the way I've seen it used and seen it evolve, over the years. I don't think it's possible or desirable to narrow it down too much, but we can observe trends. Your definition seems to be an outlier, mostly popping up in very casual use.

I agree my opinion is an outlier. In the 15 years since the OSR has popped up on people's radar the vast majority of folks keep trying to read something more into what going on. That it can't just be a random chaotic jumble born of the fact that unlike most of what available out there that the material to support classic D&D is there free to use without any gatekeeper or preconceptions as to how it may be used. That it is free to use in the creative sense as well as the financial sense.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 06:11:55 PM
And I'm also arguing that your definition is less useful. It's so broad it's basically synonymous with old school, which makes the term redundant, and doesn't help distinguish what makes it unique.

I have stated several time what make the situation unique. The fact there are no dominant individual or company couple with the ability to use the foundational material in the manner the individual see fit in the form they want. That the reason that it doesn't just fly apart in a million directions is because is centered on a series of out of print editions of D&D that are readily available in PDF form.  The boundary being whether it is useful somebody running a campaign using one of those editions.

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 06:11:55 PM
That's what movements are. Or if you don't like the word movement because you think it necessarily implies some degree of unified organization, feel free to use another. But that's not how I've been using it.

A movement implies something in common. If isn't organization, then it is a philosophy or a theme.  Again my point has been quite consistently that the OSR is nothing more or less than what people can do with one of the classic editions of D&D. There is no common philosophy or theme. Just a starting point that begins with a classic edition. Some are only related thematically like Dungeon World. Others are closer but different in important ways in terms of the mechanics like Castles & Crusades, Blood & Treasure. Others are closer still to the point where they are directly compatible but still pretty much their own thing like Ruins & Ronin or my own Majestic Fantasy. Then there are the clones and the near-clones which hew closely to one of the classic editions.

Anything that can be done with the classic editions mechanics or themes is or has been done somewhere in the OSR. Which is why it is ludicrous to think of it as a movement. Instead it what happen people have true creative freedom to what they want with a popular and beloved system and the hobby isn't dominated socially or creatively by a single entity. Which is the issue with D&D 3.X because of Paizo and Pathfinder.

Quote from: VisionStorm on March 03, 2022, 08:04:37 AM
In fairness to the OSR, the behavior of one rabid member of these boards is not necessarily indicative of the behavior or mindset of the whole,

That's not at all what I was saying, though.

Here's an analogy. Suppose I'm reviewing my budget and looking at how much money I earned last month and how much I spent. If I zeroed in on a single line item, like how much I spent on RPGs, and used that to conclude, "Ah! I'm spending way too much money!" then I would indeed be making the error you cite. After all, I could be under-spending in other areas. Maybe I'm not spending enough money on health club memberships, hygiene products, rent (since I'm living in my mom's basement), and so on. My RPG expenditure line item is not representative of the whole. You are correct.

However, if after adding it all up it turns out my total spending exceeds my total earnings, then I am certainly spending too much overall. And there are no two ways about that. Moreover, if it turns out that my total excess spending is exactly equal to my RPG over-spending, I'm going to be highly suspicious that's the culprit. But that still wouldn't make my RPG spending representative of my spending overall.

And that's more like what I was saying. The insults we as a group deliver, at least in this thread, is insufficient to meet the demand to be insulted, as evidenced by the fact that you actually can point to examples of people feeling sleighted even as they admit the person probably didn't mean it. It's possible (though not conclusively evident) that we may be too easily offended. I'd be willing to entertain arguments for and against that proposition. But on the evidence, I'm ruling out that we, as a whole, are overly offensive (again, at least as it pertains to this thread).

Pros:

- in OSR assumption of sandboxey simulation
- randomized characters
- ability to shuffle subsystems around

Cons:

- less than any skill system
- player skill over character skill which for me change certain elements more in puzzle game than RPG
- class abilities dominating overall character mechanics
- generally classess and levels are kinda meh
- not enough basic attributes

Quote from: estar on March 03, 2022, 10:18:57 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 03, 2022, 06:11:55 PM
Interesting, that you think that makes you an unbiased observer.

I have stated my opinions of course I have bias. But more importantly I outlined why I hold these opinion leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions as to the accuracy of my opinions.

I missed this at the start of the month, so I won't resurrect the whole argument. But while I disagree with you on many of the points, I think your positions in this last post sound very reasonable, and many of our differences seem almost (but not fully) definitional. For instance, while I do think the OSR is a movement, and I do think there are shared threads and themes, I don't any have problem with saying it's scattered, or that the main glue keeping it from fragmenting entirely is the old school D&D ruleset, or that it lacks any central organization or leadership.

Quote from: Pat on March 28, 2022, 06:06:02 PM
I missed this at the start of the month, so I won't resurrect the whole argument. But while I disagree with you on many of the points, I think your positions in this last post sound very reasonable, and many of our differences seem almost (but not fully) definitional. For instance, while I do think the OSR is a movement, and I do think there are shared threads and themes, I don't any have problem with saying it's scattered, or that the main glue keeping it from fragmenting entirely is the old school D&D ruleset, or that it lacks any central organization or leadership.

Sounds good to me. The only thing I will add is that the wealth of open content means anybody can consider what the OSR means for them and implement their idea in the manner they see fit especially when it comes to sharing or publishing material. This is in addition to the usual things one can do with any RPG system regardless of whether it open or not.

So riffing on a name of a recent movie, the result is everything everywhere all at once