TheRPGSite

One of the neat things about this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=31839) article series is that it identifies kinds mechanics that make OSR games feel like OSR games

• Strength is Better for Combat (in most cases) than Dexterity --> a sword and sorcery feel
• Ranged attacks are frequently dangerous or not available --> combat is dangerous
• Spells available to casters are more randomly distributed --> spells are less technology-like, casters are more varied

I would also add

• Attribute bonuses and penalties have a smaller range of values -> people are more accepting/functional w/ random score generation, more of a "you were just a "regular guy" before adventuring

What would you add?

Quote from: PencilBoy99;835678

• Attribute bonuses and penalties have a smaller range of values -> people are more accepting/functional w/ random score generation, more of a "you were just a "regular guy" before adventuring

You can't get much more OSR than Greyhawk (1st OD&D supplement, introducing the thief) which gives STR a bonus of up to +4 to hit, +6 damage! Dex of 18 gives you +4 or +5 to AC (I can't work out which it means).

Hmm... Misremembered that one!

Honestly, I don't think there is anything that is or isn't OSR. Almost all game mechanics that showed up even in the modern era were done in the 1970s (or at least, 1980s), at least until you got to that narrative stuff.

I also don't think strength being better in combat necessarily fits sword & sorcery. Conan, sure, but what about the Grey Mouser? What about Elak of Atlantis? Both were not overly large or strong men who preferred to use rapiers. (see http://www.swordandsorcery.org/swordsmen-elak.asp for some depictions of Elak)

Quote from: JoeNuttall;835714You can't get much more OSR than Greyhawk (1st OD&D supplement, introducing the thief) which gives STR a bonus of up to +4 to hit, +6 damage! Dex of 18 gives you +4 or +5 to AC (I can't work out which it means).

Ah, but you are wrong (in saying you can't get more OSR than Greyhawk, your other point is correct). It seems like the much of the OSR movement (the vocal part) is based on the idea that the game (and roleplaying in general) went wrong with the introduction of Greyhawk. That "White Box" is the only true roleplaying.

Also, I think there was a rather high mortality rate of low ability score characters. While I think the whole idea of DCC's funnel is somewhat overblown, there is some truth into people having a lot of characters to start with, and the tougher ones surviving and continued to get played.

I think trying to get rid of that character churn was one of the motivations for the 4d6 in AD&D and the wider bonuses in B/X

The better question is why are people so obsessed with classifying component parts of rpgs instead of just playing them?

No one can even come up with a good definition of "OSR", so good luck.

Quote from: Brad;835733The better question is why are people so obsessed with classifying component parts of rpgs instead of just playing them?

No one can even come up with a good definition of "OSR", so good luck.

I wonder sometimes. Why should I give a squirt if a game meets certain criteria as long as it's fun and I like playing it? "Oh my god, it doesn't have armor make you harder to hit and there are no level names, it's not TRUE OSR!"

Quote from: JeremyR;835730Ah, but you are wrong (in saying you can't get more OSR than Greyhawk, your other point is correct).

Err... that's obviously why I said: "You can't get much more OSR than Greyhawk". You could go with white box (as I'm doing myself in one campaign!) or even use Chainmail combat, or try and recreate Arneson style D&D!

Quote from: JeremyR;835730Almost all game mechanics that showed up even in the modern era were done in the 1970s (or at least, 1980s), at least until you got to that narrative stuff.

Agreed. I even played freeform diceless in the late 1980s (I know that, 'cos it was before I started dating my wife!).

Quote from: PencilBoy99;835678One of the neat things about this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=31839) article series is that it identifies kinds mechanics that make OSR games feel like OSR games

• Strength is Better for Combat (in most cases) than Dexterity --> a sword and sorcery feel

And I would point out that the Mouser, Solomon Kane and frigging Conan would disagree with this. Not a single one of them fights with brute strength without dexterity, and at least the Mouser is explicitly relying on the speed of his blade and proud with said speed:).
Conan has iron thews, true, but he's also got more speed and stamina, not to mention panther-like reflexes and coordination, that "civilised" men just cannot compete with (and to be fair, neither can Picts). Governor Arnold just isn't a good representation of the S&S type;). Jack Dempsey is, on the other hand, almost perfect.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;835678

• Ranged attacks are frequently dangerous or not available --> combat is dangerous

Do you mean ranged combat isn't dangerous:D?
And I mean combat, not shooting at targets that lack missile weapons. That's murder, not combat.

Quote from: JeremyR;835730Honestly, I don't think there is anything that is or isn't OSR. Almost all game mechanics that showed up even in the modern era were done in the 1970s (or at least, 1980s), at least until you got to that narrative stuff.

I concur. In fact, some narrative stuff showed up pretty early in the 70ies. It's called "hit points":p!
Seriously, Old Geezer has explained repeatedly that hit points were meant to emulate the pacing of Erol Flynn-like duels, and represent nothing in the game world. That's almost the definition of a narrative mechanic:D! We're just used to them, so they don't seem narrative.

Personally, I think the hallmark of OSR games is the permission to try anything. If you think it would work, go for it. That includes improvising in combat.
The other thing that stands out, to me, is using lots of hirelings whenever they're available;).

For me, old school play doesn't have any set mechanics or formulas that are required for play. Instead, there are some guiding principles that I feel give an old school vibe to a game.

1) Players are more important than characters.

The people gathered together to play a game for mutual entertainment are vastly more important than the scribbles on a character sheet or notebook paper. This means that the player matters. Good play is the key to survival, not what numbers are on your sheet.

2) Character life is cheap

Even with good play, adventuring is dangerous and most adventurers die before achieving the wealth and fame that they so long to have. It happens. Get over it and roll up a fresh character.

3) The fictional situation rules.

Use whatever mechanics make for the best game play at your table. Think about what is happening in the game world and that affects the rules instead of the other way around.  Never allow rote procedure to overrule common sense.

4) The rules serve the game.

Always. If a rule is infringing on the fun of the group as a whole, punt it and use something else. Old school playing means being willing to improvise to get what you want.

5) Your story can take a hike.

Actual play and what happens at the table are what matters. It is a game to be played, not a novel to be played out. Roll with the unexpected twists and turns. They will often pleasantly surprise you.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;835929Instead, there are some guiding principles that I feel give an old school vibe to a game.

1) Players are more important than characters.
2) Character life is cheap
3) The fictional situation rules.
4) The rules serve the game.
5) Your story can take a hike.

That's a fantastic set of values, distilling a playing style down into an attitude. The other day I wrote up a similar list - a Manifesto for what you get if you elect me to be your DM - and the differences are quite illuminating.

I agree with all 4 except the "character life is cheap", which is something my players won't accept, and I think was probably already going by the time AD&D came out (and that's OSRIC so almost by definition that's OSR).

I'd thought of starting a thread along these lines - what's your RPG manifesto - but perhaps I'm too much of a new boy to be doing that!

Quote from: JoeNuttall;835963That's a fantastic set of values, distilling a playing style down into an attitude. The other day I wrote up a similar list - a Manifesto for what you get if you elect me to be your DM - and the differences are quite illuminating.

I agree with all 4 except the "character life is cheap", which is something my players won't accept, and I think was probably already going by the time AD&D came out (and that's OSRIC so almost by definition that's OSR).

I'd thought of starting a thread along these lines - what's your RPG manifesto - but perhaps I'm too much of a new boy to be doing that!

I don't have an overall rpg manifesto. There are many types of games and styles of play.

The values I outlined are simply what I think is important for an old school feel. Not every rpg fits with old school values so I don't consider them universal to roleplaying in general.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836062I don't have an overall rpg manifesto. There are many types of games and styles of play.

The values I outlined are simply what I think is important for an old school feel. Not every rpg fits with old school values so I don't consider them universal to roleplaying in general.

Do you mean they're not universal to everyone's roleplaying, or that none of those rules are universal to the games you play, or that only some of those rules are universal to the games you play?

In any roleplaying I'd be interested in playing nowadays "the rules serve the game" would be a mantra I'd live by. I'm not interested in sticking with the rules regardless. But many people are, they're interested in playing the rules as written. I don't mind that people play games that way, but it's not for me. Similarly "the fictional situation rules" is a line in the sand for me, yet for story games there's obviously an entirely different agenda.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836070Do you mean they're not universal to everyone's roleplaying, or that none of those rules are universal to the games you play, or that only some of those rules are universal to the games you play?

In any roleplaying I'd be interested in playing nowadays "the rules serve the game" would be a mantra I'd live by. I'm not interested in sticking with the rules regardless. But many people are, they're interested in playing the rules as written. I don't mind that people play games that way, but it's not for me. Similarly "the fictional situation rules" is a line in the sand for me, yet for story games there's obviously an entirely different agenda.

I largely prefer games in the old school style. I will participate in more story oriented games so long as they look like fun and are advertised as such.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836071I largely prefer games in the old school style. I will participate in more story oriented games so long as they look like fun and are advertised as such.

Does that mean that "none of those rules are universal to the games you play"?

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836074Does that mean that "none of those rules are universal to the games you play"?

#1,3, and 4 are staples for me and it would be a rare game indeed that would go against these that I would find interesting enough to want to play.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836079#1,3, and 4 are staples for me and it would be a rare game indeed that would go against these that I would find interesting enough to want to play.

Thanks Exploderwizard.

On another forum I read a thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?758515-Bad-GMing) where people discussed whether the DM narrating scenes that don't involve the characters is bad or lazy. It's a truly alien to my style of playing games, so much so that I wouldn't even have thought of it, but it's illuminating that some people still think that "style of game I don't like" implies "Bad DM" or "Bad Game".

I find it illuminating that requirements(?) like these for how someone likes to game seem to define the sort of mechanics/system/style you like far better than any of that simulationist/narrative/gamist claptrap.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836189On another forum I read a thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?758515-Bad-GMing) where people discussed whether the DM narrating scenes that don't involve the characters is bad or lazy.

Oh, the 'cut scene' controversy... yeah, I'd leave a group if the GM insisted on doing that. I wouldn't say bad or lazy... just not my style.

Quote from: Brad;835733The better question is why are people so obsessed with classifying component parts of rpgs instead of just playing them?

No one can even come up with a good definition of "OSR", so good luck.

To my mind, what's great about the pioneering games is the very lack of adherence to any school. Going with what's fun just because you're having fun, and sharing it on the likelihood that somebody else might also enjoy it, that's the thing to me.

The "old school renaissance" on the other hand is a reaction against a new school (or several) that shaped official Dungeons & Dragons especially in the Wizards of the Coast era. Trying to stipulate definitive particulars is still rather silly. There's a general sensibility that inclines one either to enjoy the old TSR-era games more, or to regard them as inferior (perhaps not worth playing at all).

Drawing the line is a separate, internet-played game that some people seem to like a lot more than anything actually involving dungeons, dragons, dice and paper.

Quote from: Phillip;836227To my mind, what's great about the pioneering games is the very lack of adherence to any school.

It was the "pioneering games" that invented the schools!

Quote from: Phillip;836227Going with what's fun just because you're having fun, and sharing it on the likelihood that somebody else might also enjoy it, that's the thing to me.

Go for it!

Quote from: Phillip;836227The "old school renaissance" on the other hand is a reaction against a new school (or several) that shaped official Dungeons & Dragons especially in the Wizards of the Coast era.

I think it's people having fun, and in particular having fun doing things they have been told they're not allowed to enjoy.

Quote from: Phillip;836227Drawing the line is a separate, internet-played game that some people seem to like a lot more than anything actually involving dungeons, dragons, dice and paper.

Sorry, I'd love to discuss, but get to head off to my game...

Quote from: Phillip;836227The "old school renaissance" on the other hand is a reaction against a new school (or several) that shaped official Dungeons & Dragons especially in the Wizards of the Coast era.

I saw it as a revolt against relying so much on commercial products... against money-grubbing splat treadmills and isolationist 'brand loyalty' that tried to dictate/homogenize how we played... against lock-step adopting new editions and what ever changes the blessed designer-gods decided to make... against high-end graphics that bamboozle folks into thinking "Oh, I couldn't do that!"... against thinking that a system needs to cover every possible contingency or else it's not complete.

That was my take on the OSR and what caught my interest. That the RPG hobby could look back to it's low-fi, garage band roots and dwell amongst the blogs and zines and enthusiastic hobbyists... rather than waiting like calves for the next 'official' drip from the corporate teat.
I never thought it had to do with any specific mechanics or system... just a return to a more DIY mindset.

Quote from: Simlasa;836232I saw it as a revolt against relying so much on commercial products... against money-grubbing splat treadmills and isolationist 'brand loyalty' that tried to dictate/homogenize how we played... against lock-step adopting new editions and what ever changes the blessed designer-gods decided to make... against high-end graphics that bamboozle folks into thinking "Oh, I couldn't do that!"... against thinking that a system needs to cover every possible contingency or else it's not complete.

That was my take on the OSR and what caught my interest. That the RPG hobby could look back to it's low-fi, garage band roots and dwell amongst the blogs and zines and enthusiastic hobbyists... rather than waiting like calves for the next 'official' drip from the corporate teat.
I never thought it had to do with any specific mechanics or system... just a return to a more DIY mindset.

Yep. Pretty much sums it up for me. Specific mechanics used are less important than the DIY attitude, and reliance on your own and other hobbyists creativity instead of a steady stream of corporate bloat.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836238Yep. Pretty much sums it up for me. Specific mechanics used are less important than the DIY attitude, and reliance on your own and other hobbyists creativity instead of a steady stream of corporate bloat.

OSR was about specific mechanics - the mechanics of D&D. It expanded in various ways to be a broader church - but that description could just as easily apply to "Dogs In The Vinyard".

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836293OSR was about specific mechanics - the mechanics of D&D. It expanded in various ways to be a broader church - but that description could just as easily apply to "Dogs In The Vinyard".

Stars Without Number and Mutant Future are regarded as an OSR games and they have very little to do with D&D.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836296Stars Without Number and Mutant Future are regarded as an OSR games and they have very little to do with D&D.

A game with six attributes STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHR rolled as 3d6 has "very little to do with D&D"? Do you really mean that?

But that's in agreement with what I said - OSR has expanded to be a broad church, i.e. it includes all sort of stuff such as these, but it certainly does *not* include "Dogs In The Vinyard".

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836300A game with six attributes STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHR rolled as 3d6 has "very little to do with D&D"? Do you really mean that?

But that's in agreement with what I said - OSR has expanded to be a broad church, i.e. it includes all sort of stuff such as these, but it certainly does *not* include "Dogs In The Vinyard".

Not familiar with Dogs in the Vinyard, whatever that is.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836315Not familiar with Dogs in the Vinyard, whatever that is.

Indie Story game Forge RPG from 2004. By Vincent Baker. Antithesis of OSR play, but is entirely accurately described as "DIY attitude, and reliance on your own and other hobbyists creativity instead of a steady stream of corporate bloat."

I think people did OSR because they found they enjoyed it, and probably didn't analyse why!

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836318Indie Story game Forge RPG from 2004. By Vincent Baker. Antithesis of OSR play, but is entirely accurately described as "DIY attitude, and reliance on your own and other hobbyists creativity instead of a steady stream of corporate bloat."

I think people did OSR because they found they enjoyed it, and probably didn't analyse why!

I suspect this is the truth of the matter.

Well, historically, there are technological, legal, and commercial precursors to the OSR.

Technological--the Internet, especially the web, fora, and Web 2.0; also all the stuff that enables DTP (even though the result is often consumed in html or PDF format)

Legal--the OGL and similar licensing schemes have made it easy for people to publish variants of existing rules, especially D&D, without fear of legal action and without being suppressed. This is really important because D&D is a lingua franca; without a common rulebase around which to coalesce, the following would only have led to more fragmented fandoms--people scattering in a dozen different mutually-unintelligible directions.

Commercial--D&D 3.0 through 4.0 ceded an increasingly large mindspace/market space to DIY and to rules that are simpler, faster to play, and more malleable.

At this point it's hard to imagine a world without the technological foundation but the legal and commercial factors could have easily not emerged. Then again 4.0, which really pushed the OSR into overdrive, might never have been such a radical departure if it weren't WotC trying to respond to the OGL market environment.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;836189Thanks Exploderwizard.

On another forum I read a thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?758515-Bad-GMing) where people discussed whether the DM narrating scenes that don't involve the characters is bad or lazy. It's a truly alien to my style of playing games, so much so that I wouldn't even have thought of it, but it's illuminating that some people still think that "style of game I don't like" implies "Bad DM" or "Bad Game".

I find it illuminating that requirements(?) like these for how someone likes to game seem to define the sort of mechanics/system/style you like far better than any of that simulationist/narrative/gamist claptrap.

I'm not going to read that whole thread.  But here's what I think about cutscenes.

Cutscenes are like any GM tool.  They can be good or bad.  There are certain situations they can add something, but there are just as many, if not more, where they are the wrong tool for the job.

I've had some good cutscenes that players have remembered for decades.  I've had many that sucked, and cast a dark shadow over whatever I was trying to run.  In fact, the last one I tried to do flopped hard.

I find they work best as stingers at the end of a session, in much the same way the Marvel movies all have after-credits stingers.  It's a good way to get players excited for next session, or fit in a joke which might have messed up the pacing of the episode itself.

The big catch is that good cutscenes need to be about something the players are interested in, but they can't do anything about.  That inherently makes a cutscene a precarious balancing act.  Plus, it's very easy to fall to the dark side and the GM to make the cutscene a form of GMPC theater, which will usually make it suck.

Never seen anyone do a "cut scene" as you fellas are describing. Personally I'd prefer as a player that the GM not reveal goings-on for which my PC was not present, unless in some secondhand form (rumors, accounts from witnesses, etc.) Otherwise to me it feels like I'm watching a play or film or television show rather than an active participant in a game. Feels a bit precious of the GM to be presenting his "story" to me in that way. Seems rather gauche as well. As a GM I would not want to inflict this on my players. Maybe that's just me, though; as I indicated I have never seen this done. Perhaps there's a better method to convey the information one wants to today rather than a "cut scene." Or perhaps there's a better method of doing a "cut scene" than I seem able to envisage.

The old Star Wars d6 adventures advocated cut scenes to make the game feel more movie-like, but I always viscerally disliked the idea without really knowing why. Now I understand it's because it goes against you-are-there immersion. I think these days I'd be less opposed to them for a deliberately cinematic game, but the point still stands - they take the players away from identification with their player character by changing the perspective to one the PC could not have.

Quote from: S'mon;836351The old Star Wars d6 adventures advocated cut scenes to make the game feel more movie-like, but I always viscerally disliked the idea without really knowing why. Now I understand it's because it goes against you-are-there immersion. I think these days I'd be less opposed to them for a deliberately cinematic game, but the point still stands - they take the players away from identification with their player character by changing the perspective to one the PC could not have.

That's the only game Ive experienced with cut scenes. When I ran it, I left out them out for that as well. It doesn't make the game any more "Star Wars" or fun by having them.

Quote from: Simlasa;836232I saw it as a revolt against relying so much on commercial products... against money-grubbing splat treadmills and isolationist 'brand loyalty' that tried to dictate/homogenize how we played... against lock-step adopting new editions and what ever changes the blessed designer-gods decided to make... against high-end graphics that bamboozle folks into thinking "Oh, I couldn't do that!"... against thinking that a system needs to cover every possible contingency or else it's not complete.

That was my take on the OSR and what caught my interest. That the RPG hobby could look back to it's low-fi, garage band roots and dwell amongst the blogs and zines and enthusiastic hobbyists... rather than waiting like calves for the next 'official' drip from the corporate teat.
I never thought it had to do with any specific mechanics or system... just a return to a more DIY mindset.

That aspect is groovy, and arose because (1) WotC wasn't publishing old-style material and (2) the OGL opened a more legally safe method for others to do so -- even to make 'clones' much as reverse-engineered BIOS led to clones and industry standard architecture from the IBM PC.

Obviously, though,  there are lots of people associating o.s. with some kinds of rules and approaches to play. In that regard, it's quite D&D-centric.

At Knights & Knaves Alehouse, I saw someone say that character skills are not o.s.. In that context, it was coherent. Never mind that games contemporary with or older than the PHB -- including some for which K&KA had dedicated forums -- featured skill rules. The site was explicitly dedicated to "Gygaxian D&D," and more specifically to 1st ed. AD&D pre-UA. So, it had a defined "school" (however ideosyncratic) as a basis.

More often, the game is played by assessing other games (however old or new) in terms of how much a certain demographic of D&D fans likes them, with rationales then drawn from comparison with D&D.

Quote from: Phillip;836392That aspect is groovy...

I've never much cared about the specific taxonomy of what is/isn't 'OSR'... I was just stating what drew me to the materials that claimed that for themselves... why I started taking an interest in D&D-likes after years of avoiding... despising.... class/level systems.
I've never played Dogs In The Vineyard but I'd like to try it. If it can be approached/played with that OSR attitude then that would matter more to me than how many dice we rolled to create characters or whether or not it has rules for skills.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;836296Stars Without Number and Mutant Future are regarded as an OSR games and they have very little to do with D&D.

Mutant Future is a spinoff of Labyrinth Lord, which is about as faithful a clone of D&D (1981) as you'll see. I'd say it has more to do with D&D than its Gamma World inspiration did.

Quote from: Simlasa;836398I've never much cared about the specific taxonomy of what is/isn't 'OSR'... I was just stating what drew me to the materials that claimed that for themselves... why I started taking an interest in D&D-likes after years of avoiding... despising.... class/level systems.
I've never played Dogs In The Vineyard but I'd like to try it. If it can be approached/played with that OSR attitude then that would matter more to me than how many dice we rolled to create characters or whether or not it has rules for skills.

Well, what is "that OSR attitude to play"?  If you mean the sorts of things commonly cited, then the design intent of DitV may be a lot more at variance than that of WotC's editions of D&D.

There's a distinction here among what one can do with a text, what the authors encourage one to do with it, and what the prevailing gamer culture around it holds as customary or 'proper'.

Like I said, I've never played DitV so I don't know how it plays... or if it supports various modes of play.
I'm thinking the 'OSR attitude' I'm fond of would be inclined to ignore the author's intent if the players wanted to take a game in a different direction. I know plenty of folks fawned over Gary Gygax back in the day but I was in the crowd that thought the man was delusional if he thought he could control how folks were playing.

I agree with those who say that the indie scene, of which DitV was a prime example, is much more generally about fighting "the man" than the OSR is. That is, the OSR has a pretty specific "the man" it fought against, and beat. The indie-forge people were fighting against a notion of consumerism that they'd pretty much built up themselves.

If the OSR attitude is just to ignore author intent and creatively ignore, misunderstand, and patch the rules-as-written, then...pretty much any game is compatible with OSR, isn't it?

As written, the game violates exploderwizard's 3, 4, and arguably 1 and 5.

Quote from: Arminius;836424If the OSR attitude is just to ignore author intent and creatively ignore, misunderstand, and patch the rules-as-written, then...pretty much any game is compatible with OSR, isn't it?

The OSR attitude is to misunderstand the rules? That's an odd statement.

Quote from: Arminius;836424As written, the game violates exploderwizard's 3, 4, and arguably 1 and 5.

OD&D and BX D&D both explicitly support 3&4, it's only AD&D that undermines the principle. Plot driven adventures as a concept didn't properly arrive until 1984 with Dragonlance, so I don't follow that point. #1 is built into the core attitude of the game.

Quote from: Arminius;836424I agree with those who say that the indie scene, of which DitV was a prime example, is much more generally about fighting "the man" than the OSR is. That is, the OSR has a pretty specific "the man" it fought against, and beat. The indie-forge people were fighting against a notion of consumerism that they'd pretty much built up themselves.

If the OSR attitude is just to ignore author intent and creatively ignore, misunderstand, and patch the rules-as-written, then...pretty much any game is compatible with OSR, isn't it?

As written, the game violates exploderwizard's 3, 4, and arguably 1 and 5.

Adopting whatever the ref at hand likes for her/his campaign is -- with a certain starting framework -- what most people I've played with consider "just D&D".  Starting with something else may be harder, more of a fight against the grain.

Champions, for instance, comes to mind as something that really shines with different focuses than old D&D and similar games. It has a very different feel unless you toss a great deal of what makes Hero System what it is. To me, it would be easier to graft bits from it into D&D than to go the other way.

JoeNutall--

Creatively misunderstand.

For better or worse, and sometimes not by their own fault, people take RPG rules and infer a projected intent. This then informs a loosey-goosey approach to rules that ultimately makes the game their own (if they like it & stick with it). Result: multiple groups absolutely convinced they're playing "the right way", but none of them the same way at all.

For the rest, perhaps you thought I was referring to D&D when I wrote "the game"? I was talking about DitV.

Quote from: Phillip;836431Adopting whatever the ref at hand likes for her/his campaign is -- with a certain starting framework -- what most people I've played with consider "just D&D".  Starting with something else may be harder, more of a fight against the grain.

Yes. I wasn't too clear in my earlier post but what I meant was that DitV is perfectly compatible with "old school" and with "OSR" (if one cares to distinguish those two) provided

• In the case of "old school", you ignore the primacy ascribed to the rules text by the Forge-indie scene out of which DitV appeared, and the suspicion with which "drift" is viewed in that scene.
• In the case of "OSR", you also ignore a lot of the specific rules and GMing guidelines (which, in the indie scene, were considered integral to the rules).

Quote from: Arminius;836432For the rest, perhaps you thought I was referring to D&D when I wrote "the game"? I was talking about DitV.

I did - and ironically we were discussing misunderstanding!

Quote from: Arminius;836435Yes. I wasn't too clear in my earlier post but what I meant was that DitV is perfectly compatible with "old school" and with "OSR" (if one cares to distinguish those two)

My understanding is that the Forge games like Ditv were designed to directly contradict old school play, based upon the premise that old school play was fundamentally flawed and no-one playing it actually enjoyed the game. Or something like that - the arguments on the subject got rather heated and long winded! It's now (oddly) Ron Edward's argument that he invented the OSR, something he fought to bring an end to. Something along the lines of thinking that there weren't any independent RPG products before his Indie RPG movement.

The OSR was rallying against both this point of view, and the "modern version of your game is better" view, and playing the game that people wanted to.

Ahem, it might help if I also mentioned that my grandmother would be a bus provided she had wheels.

Yeah, Edwards is absurd.

Quote from: RPGPundit;837033Yeah, Edwards is absurd.

Yes, but his attacks are all against White Wolf (or 2e AD&D) 'Illusionist' play, Dragonlance railroading, choices-don't-matter, publisher metaplots et al. Of modern era stuff the Paizo Adventure Paths would be directly in his sights, whereas a pure Gamist OD&D game would not be. He does dislike and misunderstand how simulation, gamism and drama can interlock and mutually support each other, which is what I'd tend to think of as classic D&D gaming, but his Forge/Indie movement wasn't a direct attack on that, it was a direct attack on '90s White Wolf gaming.

Quote from: S'mon;837058Yes, but his attacks are all against White Wolf (or 2e AD&D) 'Illusionist' play, Dragonlance railroading, choices-don't-matter, publisher metaplots et al.

Which are all examples of things I'd expect the OSR guys would at least tacitly approve being attacked.

Quote from: S'mon;837058Yes, but his attacks are all against White Wolf (or 2e AD&D) 'Illusionist' play, Dragonlance railroading, choices-don't-matter, publisher metaplots et al. Of modern era stuff the Paizo Adventure Paths would be directly in his sights, whereas a pure Gamist OD&D game would not be. He does dislike and misunderstand how simulation, gamism and drama can interlock and mutually support each other, which is what I'd tend to think of as classic D&D gaming, but his Forge/Indie movement wasn't a direct attack on that, it was a direct attack on '90s White Wolf gaming.

He wrote an RPG "Elfs" specifically to satirise and poke fun at old school D&D, to bury it by laughing at it.

Here's a quote from him at A Hard Look at Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/20/):

QuoteNo wonder people either idealize or vilify their youthful experiences playing D&D. On the one hand, it was you and your best-est friends, working something out together and arriving at (quite possibly) your first-ever Social Contract with other people, completely isolated from adults-approved activities. In other words, you remember it fondly not because the game itself was good, but because it wasn't - you remember your repair of it at the Step On Up and Challenge levels, and the good moments, however common or few they were, were all triumphs.

You see, we're all deluded if we think we enjoyed playing D&D. Ron knows best. Let's play one of his approved games.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;837067He wrote an RPG "Elfs" specifically to satirise and poke fun at old school D&D, to bury it by laughing at it.

Here's a quote from him at A Hard Look at Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/20/):



You see, we're all deluded if we think we enjoyed playing D&D. Ron knows best. Let's play one of his approved games.

I've played Elfs. It didn't make me less interested in old-school D&D, just taught me that mechanics don't have to assume people wouldn't be playing the game for laughs:).
In that regard Ron Edwards helped my appreciation of old-school D&D, the opposite of the guy who first tried to run AD&D2e for me and a group of my friends;).

Quote from: S'mon;837058Forge/Indie movement wasn't a direct attack on that, it was a direct attack on '90s White Wolf gaming.

Bingo. But they had no one but themselves to blame for being under WW's heel, figuratively speaking. They bought into the WW illusion, then they rebelled against it.

The OSR was much more a reaction to WotC changing the game.

Quote from: Arminius;837111The OSR was much more a reaction to WotC changing the game.

Wasn't the success of Pathfinder a reaction to that as well?

Quote from: Simlasa;837114Wasn't the success of Pathfinder a reaction to that as well?

Yes, and I'm referring to PF as "the OSR of the 3e fans":).

Absolutely, although of course only post-4e. And I think PF also had some impetus not only in the mechanical changes but the change in the license from d20 and OGL (the two related licenses for 3.x) to GSL (for 4e).

The OSR I think has roots going back to the 3e era, though I'm not sure when the abbreviation was coined. Apparently OSRIC was released in 2006, and Dragonfoot was a hotbed of anti-3e reaction going back to...?

Quote from: Arminius;837118Absolutely, although of course only post-4e. And I think PF also had some impetus not only in the mechanical changes but the change in the license from d20 and OGL (the two related licenses for 3.x) to GSL (for 4e).

The OSR I think has roots going back to the 3e era, though I'm not sure when the abbreviation was coined. Apparently OSRIC was released in 2006, and Dragonfoot was a hotbed of anti-3e reaction going back to...?

Yeah, but it's still a reaction to WotC abandoning a previous edition, and changing the edition's assumptions. As such, it's not meaningfully different whether it was a reaction to 3e, 4e or even 5e:).

And yes, systems that are trying to be OSR for 4e fans have already appeared, though I think they're based on the OGL;).

Quote from: Arminius;837118The OSR I think has roots going back to the 3e era, though I'm not sure when the abbreviation was coined. Apparently OSRIC was released in 2006, and Dragonfoot was a hotbed of anti-3e reaction going back to...?

Not sure about the abbreviation, but it's commonly accepted that the phrase itself (though not yet capitalised) was first used here (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=11962&p=198322&hilit=+old+school+renaissance+#p198322).

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the role of C&C, and more importantly, C&C as a symptom of "old school demand" in reaction to 3.x. C&C was published in 2004, so that pushes things back a bit.

EDIT: to push it back a bit further, though more in adventure design than in mechanics, the DCC modules apparently date to 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idylls_of_the_Rat_King (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Crawl_Classics)

Quote from: Arminius;837111The OSR was much more a reaction to WotC changing the game.

From D&D 2E to D&D 3E, i.e. it was a reaction against AD&D 2E going out of print.

Quote from: Simlasa;837114Wasn't the success of Pathfinder a reaction to that as well?

That was a response to the move D&D 3.5E to D&D 4E.

Quote from: Arminius;837118The OSR I think has roots going back to the 3e era, though I'm not sure when the abbreviation was coined. Apparently OSRIC was released in 2006, and Dragonfoot was a hotbed of anti-3e reaction going back to...?

People played old school D&D from 1974 to 1999. In 2000 they brought out Magic the RPG. Dragonsfoot has been going since at least 2002. The term "old school renaissance" dates from 2005. Then OSRIC in 2006, and it's been OSR ever since.

So "old school" roleplaying never went away, there was just a dip and a resurgence in popularity.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;837067He wrote an RPG "Elfs" specifically to satirise and poke fun at old school D&D, to bury it by laughing at it.

Here's a quote from him at A Hard Look at Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/20/):


You see, we're all deluded if we think we enjoyed playing D&D. Ron knows best. Let's play one of his approved games.

No, he's not saying 'we're all deluded if we think we enjoyed playing D&D' (that is a charge he levels vs 'brain damaging' Illusionist on-rails play) as children in the old school style. He's saying we're deluded if we think the rules were good, that we in fact derived enjoyment from fixing the rules and making our own fun. Edwards believes rules should define the play experience in a way that is anathema to OSR, and I certainly disagree strongly with him, but it's important to understand that this is not contempt for OD&D in the way he has contempt for post-Dragonlance play. He sees it as an immature form of play I think, but not a fundamentally broken or dysfunctional mode of play.

Quote from: Arminius;837111Bingo. But they had no one but themselves to blame for being under WW's heel, figuratively speaking. They bought into the WW illusion, then they rebelled against it.

The OSR was much more a reaction to WotC changing the game.

Sure, I agree with both your points. People wanted "story" in their games, and ended up with the pre-written story where their PCs no longer mattered at all - either they were replacable cyphers or in the worst cases they were onlookers while NPCs did the cool stuff. This mode of play is still common today; most Paizo APs are structured as pre-written stories, and most seasons of WotC's Encounters program are literally scene-by-scene stories where the players just roll dice.

Funny that OSR never rebelled against what had been the dominant mode of play in the '90s - indeed 3e in 2000 was itself trying to move away from railroad/illusionist play with its "Back to the Dungeon!" mantra. Instead OSR was specifically a rebellion against the mechanics - "character building" and suchlike - of 3e, and 3e's general tone of 'Player Primacy, GM Subordination' in 3e - but that tone was itself a reaction against railroady '90s play where players felt helpless in the hands of the GM's plot. But the result was that the OSR in delving back into history discovered pre-2e (and especially pre-1983!) modes of play that had long been lost. I find it slightly amusing that the initial Reactionary sites like Dragonsfoot are centred on the module-based play of the '80s, and often don't get along well with OSR purists who are looking for the original pre-module modes of play that were really already dying out when the 1e AD&D DMG was published in 1979.

Quote from: S'mon;837210No, he's not saying 'we're all deluded if we think we enjoyed playing D&D' (that is a charge he levels vs 'brain damaging' Illusionist on-rails play) as children in the old school style. He's saying we're deluded if we think the rules were good, that we in fact derived enjoyment from fixing the rules and making our own fun. Edwards believes rules should define the play experience in a way that is anathema to OSR, and I certainly disagree strongly with him, but it's important to understand that this is not contempt for OD&D in the way he has contempt for post-Dragonlance play. He sees it as an immature form of play I think, but not a fundamentally broken or dysfunctional mode of play.

It's splitting hairs. He still thinks we are deluded. He still thought it was terrible. He still spends a lot of time insulting and belittling everything or claiming credit for it.

As an aside, my thoughts on Dragonlance can be summed up by - I bought DL1, read it, sold it, and didn't buy another TSR product for 25 years!

Quote from: JoeNuttall;837218It's splitting hairs. He still thinks we are deluded. He still thought it was terrible. He still spends a lot of time insulting and belittling everything or claiming credit for it.

Yes, and the disgusting thing is that now he's trying to pretend none of that ever happened, once he's realized the OSR is potentially something he could profit from.