Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on September 06, 2022, 02:20:11 AM
On a more general basis, OSR game design tends to strongly resist the use of metacurrency and metagame player agency, with a heavy emphasis on the "Gamist" dimension of the "Game/Narrative/Simulation" paradigm and the "Fortune" aspect of the "Drama/Fortune/Karma" paradigm; the only effect the players can have on the gameworld or the game situation is through the actions of their characters, and the outcomes of those actions as determined by the system and by the GM's interpretation. Resource management, combination of dissimilar assets, and a good head to select optimal approaches in varying situations, judge odds and evaluate pace of decision are all critical elements to good performance in-game.

I like this portion, although I see resource management as optional. 

Quote from: Zaph on September 06, 2022, 12:12:49 AM
I was interested to see what people considered the core ideas or principles behind OSR. With new games coming out, I'd say it's significantly more than a nostalgia movement. Also, one could just choose to pare down character classes or ignore the redefining of orcs and what have you, so I don't think it's just those elements either. Just curious what people's thoughts were.

Originally, it was about the freedom that came with DIY necessity that came with the earlier games.

Now, sadly, it has become an advertising gimmick to sell retroclones and a way to discriminate against other games that are not based upon 0D&D. For example, it has been told to me that while Classic Traveller is Old School, it is not Old School Revival because it is not 0D&D based.

The new school embraces wish fulfillment of the players on the excuse of "the rule of fun."

The OSR restores the roleplaying game as a resource management game.

At the time the term "old school" as a colloquialism finally trickled into the unhip RPG community, at least in my region, it was the 2E era, there was some hot edition warring between 1E and 2E. The term then had a very clear meaning. It mainly meant AD&D 1st Ed specifically--OD&D and BECMI was largely ignored in the edition wars--and as far as outside D&D, it referred to out of print RPGs published prior to 2E.

Understand, the band Nickelback first formed 27 years ago. They get played now on the Classic Rock stations right along side of Led Zeppelin. They are clearly not the same style of music. They don't have the same feel. When "classic rock" became a label for radio stations, that meant Zeppelin and Floyd and so on. The term may have originally meant "old rock" but it became associated with a specific genre. Nickelback is not part of that genre. It's old rock, sure. I'd just never call it classic rock.

The point is, even though the term originally referred to a relative chronology, it coalesced into a fixed thing and does not really change as time goes forward.

So why does Nickelback get played on the classic rock station? I don't know. Probably because they're really popular and because you can make an argument, albeit a disingenuous one, for them being classic rock now because they have 27 year old music. And you're going to get the same thing with OSR. You've got a popular OSR surge. Game fans and designers want to be part of that wave. As long as they can give a plausible justification that what they're doing is old school, they're going to run with it regardless of truth or accuracy.

For RPGs, 3E is not old school. And here's the tough pill to swallow: 2E is NOT old school. A big part of what makes that one tough is 1E and 2E are perhaps the most mechanically similar versions of D&D. But I would say that's exactly what makes it a great case study. Because so much is the same, you can better isolate the variables of what has changed. Compare the differences of those two games, and you can get some sense of what makes old school different from not old school.

What it's not is THAC0, hit points, six attributes, etc--all of those things exist in both 1E and 2E.

But here's a difference. The illusionist in 1E is a unique class. In 2E, it's a byproduct of a system of allowing wizards to specialize in a school of magic.

For that matter, even if you want to closely examine the differences in hp or THAC0 from 1E to 2E, you'll note that 2E did away with the 2HD at first level for ranger and gave them the same d10 hit dice as all fighter types. The hit tables, which did not always perfectly fit a formula, was replaced with something formulaic. A wizard's THAC0 drops by exactly one point exactly every 3 levels.

You go from having a thin PHB and thick DMG in 1E, to the PHB being thicker than the DMG in 2E.

On the sillier side of things, you even get pronoun fuckery, where 1E uses "he or she" "him or her" and 2E just uses he/him. And it's not like they just went ahead and used the masculine exclusively. They highlighted the fact by including a section on pronoun use.

To be sure, it's not like 2E just magically appeared out of thin air. A lot of the changes had been under way in the pages of Dragon in the latter 1E years. Which brings me to another data point on usage of the term "old school." Is near as I can tell, the term became popularized at the time in hip hop culture. Old school rap generally referred to music produced between 1979 and 1983. And damn do those years mark pretty significant times in D&D. In 1983 you get Mentzer basic and expert, but companion wouldn't come until 84. BECMI was not complete and did not have any kind of skill system as of 1983. Much like early 1E didn't have non-weapon proficiencies, those only coming in later supplements. On the 1979 front, of course 1979 is the first time you have the complete set of core books needed to play 1E.

Whenever an earlier game got mentioned back when the term "old school" became a thing in RPG circles, it would be referred to as "waaay old school." Which of course is still old school, WOSR?

The 1979-1983 timeframe includes a pretty wide variety of RPGs, so no, you don't just have to do D&D clones. Basic Role-Playing, MERP, Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, and Warhammer are all published in this time frame. It's not going to be perfect. It's rough guides. But for such a relatively small slice of time to really nail the images conjured up by "old school" that well, I have to think there's something to it.

OSR is whatever OD&D fans want at that microsecond so they can shake their stick at yunguns. Not that yunguns don't need a stick shaken at them, but what the hell OSR is is completly inconsistent and is generally more mired in nostalgia as well as bitterness.

Quote from: Lunamancer on September 07, 2022, 10:00:09 AM
At the time the term "old school" as a colloquialism finally trickled into the unhip RPG community, at least in my region, it was the 2E era, there was some hot edition warring between 1E and 2E. The term then had a very clear meaning. It mainly meant AD&D 1st Ed specifically--OD&D and BECMI was largely ignored in the edition wars--and as far as outside D&D, it referred to out of print RPGs published prior to 2E.

Understand, the band Nickelback first formed 27 years ago. They get played now on the Classic Rock stations right along side of Led Zeppelin. They are clearly not the same style of music. They don't have the same feel. When "classic rock" became a label for radio stations, that meant Zeppelin and Floyd and so on. The term may have originally meant "old rock" but it became associated with a specific genre. Nickelback is not part of that genre. It's old rock, sure. I'd just never call it classic rock.

The point is, even though the term originally referred to a relative chronology, it coalesced into a fixed thing and does not really change as time goes forward.

So why does Nickelback get played on the classic rock station? I don't know. Probably because they're really popular and because you can make an argument, albeit a disingenuous one, for them being classic rock now because they have 27 year old music. And you're going to get the same thing with OSR. You've got a popular OSR surge. Game fans and designers want to be part of that wave. As long as they can give a plausible justification that what they're doing is old school, they're going to run with it regardless of truth or accuracy.

For RPGs, 3E is not old school. And here's the tough pill to swallow: 2E is NOT old school. A big part of what makes that one tough is 1E and 2E are perhaps the most mechanically similar versions of D&D. But I would say that's exactly what makes it a great case study. Because so much is the same, you can better isolate the variables of what has changed. Compare the differences of those two games, and you can get some sense of what makes old school different from not old school.

What it's not is THAC0, hit points, six attributes, etc--all of those things exist in both 1E and 2E.

But here's a difference. The illusionist in 1E is a unique class. In 2E, it's a byproduct of a system of allowing wizards to specialize in a school of magic.

For that matter, even if you want to closely examine the differences in hp or THAC0 from 1E to 2E, you'll note that 2E did away with the 2HD at first level for ranger and gave them the same d10 hit dice as all fighter types. The hit tables, which did not always perfectly fit a formula, was replaced with something formulaic. A wizard's THAC0 drops by exactly one point exactly every 3 levels.

You go from having a thin PHB and thick DMG in 1E, to the PHB being thicker than the DMG in 2E.

On the sillier side of things, you even get pronoun fuckery, where 1E uses "he or she" "him or her" and 2E just uses he/him. And it's not like they just went ahead and used the masculine exclusively. They highlighted the fact by including a section on pronoun use.

To be sure, it's not like 2E just magically appeared out of thin air. A lot of the changes had been under way in the pages of Dragon in the latter 1E years. Which brings me to another data point on usage of the term "old school." Is near as I can tell, the term became popularized at the time in hip hop culture. Old school rap generally referred to music produced between 1979 and 1983. And damn do those years mark pretty significant times in D&D. In 1983 you get Mentzer basic and expert, but companion wouldn't come until 84. BECMI was not complete and did not have any kind of skill system as of 1983. Much like early 1E didn't have non-weapon proficiencies, those only coming in later supplements. On the 1979 front, of course 1979 is the first time you have the complete set of core books needed to play 1E.

Whenever an earlier game got mentioned back when the term "old school" became a thing in RPG circles, it would be referred to as "waaay old school." Which of course is still old school, WOSR?

The 1979-1983 timeframe includes a pretty wide variety of RPGs, so no, you don't just have to do D&D clones. Basic Role-Playing, MERP, Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, and Warhammer are all published in this time frame. It's not going to be perfect. It's rough guides. But for such a relatively small slice of time to really nail the images conjured up by "old school" that well, I have to think there's something to it.

Very astute and insightful, but it is also entirely centered on D&D.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 07, 2022, 10:23:28 AM
OSR is whatever OD&D fans want at that microsecond so they can shake their stick at yunguns. Not that yunguns don't need a stick shaken at them, but what the hell OSR is is completly inconsistent and is generally more mired in nostalgia as well as bitterness.

It does sound like you've been reading this message board for a while.

What's funny is that my players are all basically 20+ years younger than me, and to a woman (they are all women), they all dislike metacurrency/metagaming. When we did playtest a sci-fi RPG for DwD Studios that used points for metagaming, we all totally forgot about the equivalent of Hero Points or whatever.

OSR principles (e.g., engage with the world first, not the rules) are now widely known and are incorporated into games that do not use the OSR label. The new Twilight 2000 is a perfect example. It is not at all based on D&D and uses a dice pool system, but the rules very much reflect OSR principles and play style.

So, the only place where the OSR label is still useful, in my opinion, is to signify general compatibility with early editions of D&D, such as anything prior to AD&D 2e.

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 07, 2022, 11:23:54 AM
OSR principles (e.g., engage with the world first, not the rules) are now widely known and are incorporated into games that do not use the OSR label. The new Twilight 2000 is a perfect example. It is not at all based on D&D and uses a dice pool system, but the rules very much reflect OSR principles and play style.

So, the only place where the OSR label is still useful, in my opinion, is to signify general compatibility with early editions of D&D, such as anything prior to AD&D 2e.

Like an advertising gimmick.....

Quote from: Zaph on September 06, 2022, 12:12:49 AM
I was interested to see what people considered the core ideas or principles behind OSR.

That you can use existing open content to support classic editions of D&D with a full range of work either shared or produced commercially.

A major side effect starting in the late 2000s is that open content plus the ease of use of digital content means that anybody who cares too can pursue whatever project they see fit that could be done with the various classic editions. Most are projects that the original folks that were involved would have never considered.

Another major side effect is reigniting a hobby and an industry centered around the classic editions mainly by showing folks how classic editions rules can work in actual play that is fun and actual works that are good.

Quote from: Zaph on September 06, 2022, 12:12:49 AM
I was interested to see what people considered the core ideas or principles behind OSR. With new games coming out, I'd say it's significantly more than a nostalgia movement.

This is a fool's game. It boils down to the whims of individual authors or teams/companies. One unique aspect of the OSR compared to other niches of the RPG industry and hobby is that it is not dominated by the creative output of a single author or company like most RPGs.

Out of what is there only Cepheus has approached this for the Traveller RPG. And that is only for non-Third Imperium settings. Mongoose is the dominant player but not dominant creatively due to the legal barriers caused by the Traveller Aid Society 3PP program. Nobody in the Cepheus community is going to lock up their original setting IP behind the gates of that program. This is the reason for Cepheus existence. If Mongoose was more like Pinnacle and Savage Worlds it would dominate Traveller/Cepheus. Mongoose has done some good work in expanding what Traveller covers like with Deepnight Revelation.

While Fate and Savage Worlds have thriving 3P communities around them they are both dominated by Evil Hat and Pinnacle both in sales and creatively.

Quote from: Zaph on September 06, 2022, 12:12:49 AM
Also, one could just choose to pare down character classes or ignore the redefining of orcs and what have you, so I don't think it's just those elements either.

It only matters what you think about those topic. And if you want to share (or publish), your skill at putting together a coherent presentation. That the strength of the OSR, that anybody can step up to the plate and contribute if they have the time and interest.

For example, my Basic Rules rules for the Majestic Fantasy RPG include markdown files of the rulebook and their content is open content under the OGL. Swords & Wizardry has a rtf file that can be downloaded of Swords & Wizardry Core rules. With either of those as a starting point, you can very quickly put together a fairly complete set of rules for your own use or share.

If you want to experience the "true" OSR then I recommend starting with works that are open content, make it clear what is open content, and make it easy to use the open content by sharing files and stuff like that.

For example my Blackmarsh here
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/blackmarsh_srd.zip

Quote from: Jam The MF on September 06, 2022, 02:23:40 AM
Well, to me it is about early versions of D&D and AD&D.  But I know some people like to include some of the other early games, which were out before BX, for example; and I don't want to exclude fans of those other games.

Having been involved since it's beginning in the late 2000's, my observations that one definition the OSR could be "Anything involving the classic editions of D&D plus whatever else its participants are interested in." For example, a lot of OSR folks become interested in Dungeon Crawl Classic due to Goodman Game outreach and the quality of the RPG. So you found a fair amount of DCC RPG chatter on OSR sites since its release. The same with the old Pacesetter Games for a while because of Goblinoid Games. This includes stuff that appeal to the same aesthetics as classic D&D but use a different system.

The common theme is that whatever it is it has caught the interest of enough people involved with the classic editions to spark discussion and some creativity.

Quote from: Zaph on September 06, 2022, 01:49:22 PM
I would hope, too, that if there was a winning innovation, such as rolling with advantage/disadvantage (I've read that was a 4E innovation?), it could be adapted it it made the overall game better.

I snagged it for my Majestic Fantasy RPG.
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2010.pdf

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 07, 2022, 12:23:24 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on September 07, 2022, 11:23:54 AM
OSR principles (e.g., engage with the world first, not the rules) are now widely known and are incorporated into games that do not use the OSR label. The new Twilight 2000 is a perfect example. It is not at all based on D&D and uses a dice pool system, but the rules very much reflect OSR principles and play style.

So, the only place where the OSR label is still useful, in my opinion, is to signify general compatibility with early editions of D&D, such as anything prior to AD&D 2e.

Like an advertising gimmick.....

At worst, yes. At best, a signal of compatibility (yeah, in practice this is not always the case).

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 06, 2022, 08:44:00 PM
Now, sadly, it has become an advertising gimmick to sell retroclones and a way to discriminate against other games that are not based upon 0D&D. For example, it has been told to me that while Classic Traveller is Old School, it is not Old School Revival because it is not 0D&D based.

The group that was involved in playing, publishing, and promoting classic editions of Dungeons & Dragons as been criticized for appropriating the use of Old School in OSR since the term gained currency by 2010. There is no "used to be" it always has been about the classic editions of D&D.

First, there are the practical considerations Classic Traveller, Runequest 2e, are not open content. And until the mid-2010s there nothing adjacent that was open content could be leveraged to come up with support for those editions of those RPGs.

Second, many of the older RPGs, never had a break in continuity like classic D&D did. Basic Roleplaying grew out of early Runequest and was still being supported by Chaosium cirica 2010. Mongoose Traveller was also out and well received by the Traveller community circia 2010. Plus the Traveller community was used to radical system changes across editions. The Traveller community were early adopters of the Internet,  and Marc Miller gave his explicit approval (within reason) of non-commercial releases supporting any edition except the current one. The two meant that Traveller "fixed" the issue with older editions by the classic edition D&D community was working out how to fix their problem with supporting their favourites.

So yes the OSR is about the classic editions first and foremost. But as I said earlier in this thread, other RPGs and other editions will get roped in from time to time depending on the interests of those involved. I have quite a few posts about Traveller on my blog. Other OSR folks support other systems both old and new.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/Traveller

And when there is criticism, you will get push back from specific individuals, because what really being asked here is "I think what you are doing is boring or not interesting and I want you pay attention to other things.". That is not a realistic (or polite) ask for what amounts to someone's hobby.

But having said, that there are those who are involved in publishing, promoting, and playing classic editions of D&D that are elitist twits so by all means if that is the case then mock them.

Finally, keep in mind that OSR is an organic term. Nobody came up with it as a trademark. There isn't full agreement on what the R stands for. The reason it caught on was not that it stood for Old School Renaissance/Revival/Ruckes/Resurgence because it formed the initials OSR. That was the fun part of using the term. It was close enough to TSR for people to get it. It could be worked into a variety of fun logos for people to play around with.

But some inside and outside of the OSR took it way to seriously. If you noticed that from the start very few, myself included, used it as a trademark on our product or even promotion. Why? Because beyond being associated with classic editions rules, it failed to describe what our stuff was about as individual authors or teams. I don't use it because my stuff is about sandbox campaigns, the world outside of the dungeon, and trashing the setting. Which is not the same as Raggi's weird horror, which is not the same as (so forth and so on).

Quote from: jeff37923 on September 07, 2022, 10:30:25 AM
Very astute and insightful, but it is also entirely centered on D&D.

That doesn't make any sense at all, "entirely centered."

Something either is centered or it isn't, entirely doesn't mean anything. And if it's entirely, then it's centered by default, and centered is redundant.

If what you really meant to say is "entirely" you're factually incorrect, as I listed 5 other RPGs by name and alluded to countless others.

And if what you really meant to say is "centered" then I think you're in for a bad time when you realize that D&D was then and is now the center of the entire industry.