Quote from: The Butcher;924053It sounds a lot like what you're looking for. DTRPG link.

Yeah, I googled it when you brought it up. I'll have to give it a look-see.

The OSR could use one giant master living index of what's available.  There's so much out there.

I feel like classic 3025 era Battletech should be the next OSR push.  No laundry lists of super-weapons, 30 different types of construction materials, super duper advanced powerplants, multi-crew cockpits, weird melee weapons, especially no Clans, none of that.  Five houses, a bunch of periphery powers, factories barely able to keep up with battlefield losses, just bring all that Road Warrior in Space goodness back and leave all the cheese behind.

It would be interesting to see someone take the next step and re-examine the post-Gygaxian, pre-WotC era of *D&D with a similar eye to what works, what doesn't, and how to revive it and make it closer to what it was trying to be. However, I don't know that the current OSR community is the right place for that kind of re-examination.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924032At a certain point though, story started to really become king (I think as Vampire gained traction TSR felt a lot of pressure to make stuff feel more highbrow). So you started seeing things in the line here and there that were much more railroady, and in one egregious case I remember, they had an NPC that flat out couldn't die for story reasons (not he was magically invincible and couldn't die, but the text straight up said don't let the PCs kill this character).

Something to keep in mind is that Loraine saw herself very much as a literary bastion. Hence why TSR branched out more and more into books and bought out Amazing Stories. So there may be a correlation not with Vampire, but instead with Dragonlance and TSRs boss. Dragonlance sold well and Loraine liked writing efforts. So more story driven and linear modules may have gotten the greenlight more. Or people were trying to recreate the success of Dragonlance and thats what kept getting submitted and approved.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;924060I feel like classic 3025 era Battletech should be the next OSR push.  No laundry lists of super-weapons, 30 different types of construction materials, super duper advanced powerplants, multi-crew cockpits, weird melee weapons, especially no Clans, none of that.  Five houses, a bunch of periphery powers, factories barely able to keep up with battlefield losses, just bring all that Road Warrior in Space goodness back and leave all the cheese behind.

Classic Battletech was in print as of I believe 2 years ago? New company, new minis. It may still be in print.

Quote from: Omega;924117Something to keep in mind is that Loraine saw herself very much as a literary bastion. Hence why TSR branched out more and more into books and bought out Amazing Stories. So there may be a correlation not with Vampire, but instead with Dragonlance and TSRs boss. Dragonlance sold well and Loraine liked writing efforts. So more story driven and linear modules may have gotten the greenlight more. Or people were trying to recreate the success of Dragonlance and thats what kept getting submitted and approved.

   That would explain why TSR went so all-in on hardcovers in the last two years of its existence, which is reportedly one of the things that caused the collapse. A couple of other things I remember hearing from people who were there at the time:

   1. The novels sold really well--better than the gaming stuff, in many cases.
   2. At the end of TSR's life, there was a 'firewall' established between Books and Games to keep them from talking with each other, even when both were working on the same world. This explains some strangeness and discontinuities in some of the last TSR/first WotC novels and game material.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;924060I feel like classic 3025 era Battletech should be the next OSR push.

So that is what I'm supposed to do with the Mecha rules from Stars Without Number.

Quote from: Omega;924117Something to keep in mind is that Loraine saw herself very much as a literary bastion. Hence why TSR branched out more and more into books and bought out Amazing Stories. So there may be a correlation not with Vampire, but instead with Dragonlance and TSRs boss. Dragonlance sold well and Loraine liked writing efforts. So more story driven and linear modules may have gotten the greenlight more. Or people were trying to recreate the success of Dragonlance and thats what kept getting submitted and approved.

I don't know. I just remember at the time, sensing that a lot of the stuff I wasn't thrilled about them introducing in Ravenloft seemed like it was a response to Vampire. But I was just a fan buying the books.

Quote from: Teodrik;923931The OSR haev seen its fair share of lovecraftian stuff, gonzo/weird, horror/gore, pulpy, pure retro etc. Something I really hope to see one day would be something that draws heavily from Birthright, Pendragon, Tolkien (but not necessarily LotR), Lord Dunsany and a bit of Martins GoT.

Have you checked out Dark Albion?

Quote from: RPGPundit;924287Have you checked out Dark Albion?

Not yet. But I was under the impression its more on the grimdark side than I had in mind, since I have heard many refer to it like Warhammer Fantasy in War of the Roses. But it is on my list for future of  purchases on drivetrhurpg.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;924119That would explain why TSR went so all-in on hardcovers in the last two years of its existence, which is reportedly one of the things that caused the collapse. A couple of other things I remember hearing from people who were there at the time:

   1. The novels sold really well--better than the gaming stuff, in many cases.
   2. At the end of TSR's life, there was a 'firewall' established between Books and Games to keep them from talking with each other, even when both were working on the same world. This explains some strangeness and discontinuities in some of the last TSR/first WotC novels and game material.

Lorraine was skimming money off TSR by producing the Buck Rogers collection hardbacks. She drew royalties from all that. But worse for TSR was that they were bleeding themselves out trying to catch onto the CCG/collectible craze and like alot of publishers it dragged them down or accelerated an allready ongoing collapse.

1: Theres been claims of it. But mostly just by Weiss and Hickman. I saw them do that one myself so its not just a story. How well the books did is anyones guess. TSR pumped out alot of books covering a pretty broad range. Even stuff for other peoples games.

2: Thats not a rumour either. At least two writers for TSR at the time that I knew well, because they were also customers, related some of the quirks of writing for product or just writing for TSR at all. And its not just a policy really. Tie in books are very often in development at the same time as the upcoming game. That goes for quite a few companies. Sometimes elements of the game change even as the writer is working on the novel or the books prepping to go to print. That hasnt changed with WOTC.

But TSR did give alot of writers a start either straight up for novels or in Amazing Stories.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924130I don't know. I just remember at the time, sensing that a lot of the stuff I wasn't thrilled about them introducing in Ravenloft seemed like it was a response to Vampire. But I was just a fan buying the books.

My personal favorite in this regard was the module Adam's Wrath, which expected the GM to suddenly kill the party one way or another (the main suggestion was an unwinnable, inescapable fight) right at the beginning so they could then 'surprise' their players when they were brought back to life as Frankenstein monsters. I can easily imagine this went down very poorly at more than one table.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923866Won't some people (not me) say "OSR adventure path" is an oxymoron though? I was often given the impression that the OSR was a firm reaction to the twin evils of heavy rules and overbearing plot concerns.

I certainly would.  I'm no OSR partisan, and I'm firmly in the camp that I'd rather drive a modern car than a Model T, but sheesh -- I'd think that going commercial and seeking to Improve It All would be the death of OSR.

I think where the OSR could see a lot of improvement is in presentation. Not just art and layout, since arguably some of the most beautiful products come out of the OSR, but in the way gameable data is presented.

Raggi/Zak tried some of that with those drop-tables, but I want it all to go a step further.

Personally, I am doing very OK with Judges Guild-style descriptions. Very bare bones. I hate having to read long texts about the peculiarities of an obelisk, or the rotten smell in an ogre's cave. I'd rather have simple descriptions, written in flavour, but presented in a streamlined fashion.

If there's a conspiracy in the kingdom, don't write paragraphs about it, present it in a pyramid. If the map has points of interest, highlight them, link them graphically, accentuate hidden shortcuts, write travel distances right next to them, if there's random encounters, mash those tables directly with the monster entries and illustrations.

Text has its place, but I would like more "show don't tell". Of course, this is usually more expensive if done right.