Quote from: EOTB;965863Game Play Style Presumptions Implicit in the Core AD&D books

While I personally would start with the assumptions behind OD&D (as they vary slightly from AD&D), I do think it's much more productive to talk about gaming on this level than arguing about minor mechanical differences.

I always thought that the OSR was based on the mantra "rulings not rules", but it appears that the rules are the most important part of the equation after all. That a game could be part of the OSR if its to-hit roll is d20 based on a chart but not OSR if the roll is d100 under a skill, even though their play styles are identical.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;965831Does the OSR, even in this third wave, still require D&D mechanics? I thought stuff like Runequest or Metamorphosis Alpha were part of the OSR.

Runequest was never out of print was it? Like CoC it is a game that has endured with more or less the same mechanics for decades.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;965900I always thought that the OSR was based on the mantra "rulings not rules", but it appears that the rules are the most important part of the equation after all.

The dirty secret of the OSR is that 'mantra' is borrowed from 'storygames' in concept if not exact wording. In fact that are several modern ideas of gaming promoted throughout the OSR and in Finch's Primer.

Quote from: Voros;965899The issue with that defintion is it comes close to restricting all 'traditional' or Gygaxian play to dungeon or hex crawls only. Its also more constructive when creating a definition to not build it on a strawman representation of the 'wrong way' to play as you have. Defining something by what it is NOT is lazy and often reactionary.

I think your point about scenarios as a rough outline that the PCs and DM (it is always a collaborative process) can take and run with is very useful and insightful, if perhaps a little intimidating for new DMs.

As I already noted the DMG has a lot of material on urban adventuring and the Vault of the Drow is far from a dungeon. I think EOTB's defintion of a role of a city in such a campaign is more useful:

"...their activities will often lead them into cities where 1) agents of the cosmic entities discussed below often operate; 2) contain stuff they need available nowhere else; 3) house political actors and guilds they may become enmeshed in, requiring player action."

That third point is particularly true of a place

" Dungeon" is a rather generic term as far as scenario design is concerned. Read " the dungeon" as "the adventure setting". In this regard, dungeon is very similar to monster. Anyone or thing that is not a player character is a monster. The orc with his pie, the shopkeeper down the street, and the smartass minstrel singing in the tavern are all "monsters".

When you think about it, a city is much like a dungeon. The streets are corridors, the buildings are rooms and the general population constantly going about their business is an endless stream of wandering monsters. The city is a fascinating place to adventure being at once a little safer and also far more dangerous than a dungeon.

As far as Gygaxian naturalism is concerned, I may be mistaken but it appears to be more concerned with letting play produce results organically rather than nudging things in the direction of a particular narrative. D&D never has had a sensible ecology. With monsters based on plastic toys roaming around at random, a "normal" ecology isn't even a consideration.

Quote from: Voros;965904The dirty secret of the OSR is that 'mantra' is borrowed from 'storygames' in concept if not exact wording. In fact that are several modern ideas of gaming promoted throughout the OSR and in Finch's Primer.

It's like how right and left wing ideologies loop around at the extreme ends to be identical forms of totalitarianism. It works the same with OSR and Storygame extremists.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;965923As far as Gygaxian naturalism is concerned, I may be mistaken but it appears to be more concerned with letting play produce results organically rather than nudging things in the direction of a particular narrative. D&D never has had a sensible ecology. With monsters based on plastic toys roaming around at random, a "normal" ecology isn't even a consideration.

Here is the blog post where he defines Gygaxian naturalism. I don't think he builds a particularly compelling argument that what he is describing is all that Gygaxian in nature. But hey, attaching "Gygaxian" to something makes it sound more authentic.

Quote from: Voros;965891Thanks for the extensive and reasoned response.

No problem, glad you found some usefulness in it.

Quote from: Voros;965899As I already noted the DMG has a lot of material on urban adventuring and the Vault of the Drow is far from a dungeon. I think EOTB's defintion of a role of a city in such a campaign is more useful:

"...their activities will often lead them into cities where 1) agents of the cosmic entities discussed below often operate; 2) contain stuff they need available nowhere else; 3) house political actors and guilds they may become enmeshed in, requiring player action."

That third point is particularly true of a place like Erelhei-Cinlu and the scheming of a city like that will almost naturally drive the game to be heavier on the role-playing element.

Cities are very much important, and a lot of time will be spent there.  The "adventure" is different, certainly, since "shoot first ask questions later" can have more immediate consequences than outside of a political jurisdiction.  I enjoy city adventuring.  I suspect DMs emphasize it less because a city's size/scope makes it more difficult to detail or channel the PCs away from what's explicitly prepared.  Cities require a lot more comfort with winging it than a dungeon, or a hex that believably only contains what the DM has placed.

I came up with some tables for politics, current events, and "people frequently sought" in cities a while back.  I can post those up in a separate thread in case anyone would find them helpful to generate activity in towns/cities which PCs are staying in or passing through.  The goal of the tables was to quickly generate interesting stuff to make each area unique, could be easily winged if players ended up involved and built out later, but (since little time investment was made by the DM) could be abandoned without regret if players didn't want a distraction from whatever they were already doing.  

Quote from: hedgehobbit;965900While I personally would start with the assumptions behind OD&D (as they vary slightly from AD&D), I do think it's much more productive to talk about gaming on this level than arguing about minor mechanical differences.

Yeah, OD&D is different (and very fun).  Arguing about minor mechanical differences is its own DM bloodsport.  It can be fun.  It's akin to pit masters arguing about regional BBQ (Pork! Beef! Carolina mustard! Texas Style!).  Nobody but the chefs care what made the meal taste good, but that doesn't stop them from doing it.  But the more I indulge it, the less time goes into gaming.  I know I'll end up in another one of those threads though.  The flesh is weak.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;965900I always thought that the OSR was based on the mantra "rulings not rules", but it appears that the rules are the most important part of the equation after all. That a game could be part of the OSR if its to-hit roll is d20 based on a chart but not OSR if the roll is d100 under a skill, even though their play styles are identical.

I guess I would say that the first impression always makes the biggest mark.  "OSR", the term, was as near as anyone can tell, was first articulated on Dragonsfoot in 2006 (and was clearly discussing an upsurge in TSR editions in comparison to the valley of a few years prior).  So while it certainly has grown way beyond that, and the original use isn't particularly defining anymore, it was the original frame of reference and so for better or worse tied the term to the D&D rulesets conceptually.
 

Quote from: Voros;965904The dirty secret of the OSR is that 'mantra' is borrowed from 'storygames' in concept if not exact wording. In fact that are several modern ideas of gaming promoted throughout the OSR and in Finch's Primer.

For full disclosure, I consider Matt a friend, so bias and all that.  The only factor I would add to the conversation which I'm not sure is already considered, is that Matt's primer was actually envisioning a specific sort of player and trying to speak to that player - someone who came into gaming in the 3E era and conceptually had limited understanding that the player was encouraged to do things not specifically granted by their character sheet.  And that the DM was also encouraged to not worry about whether there was in fact a mechanical system specifically designed to resolve the situation in question.  (Swords and Wizardry did include little touches to make itself more familiar to later-edition players.)

I don't think Matt even had the story games Pundit discusses on his mental radar.  Or that he expected it to speak to every gamer or describe the blind spots every player of later editions would inherently have.  He was just trying to write something that would address specific situations he had encountered DMing players new to OD&D style rule sets.  A lot of people have said that it did speak to them and help them conceptually according to his intent.  I suspect that if you ran into him and somehow in conversation it came out that you didn't really need what the primer discussed because you had learned those things playing story games (or anything else), he would be happy as a clam.

Quote from: Baulderstone;965933Here is the blog post where he defines Gygaxian naturalism. I don't think he builds a particularly compelling argument that what he is describing is all that Gygaxian in nature. But hey, attaching "Gygaxian" to something makes it sound more authentic.

Not Gygaxian, of course not.  I mean just look at all those RPG gameworlds that came before OD&D...

Jmal had a good point, but of course, can't help being a pretentious shitbird at the same time.

The killshot: "to remove it, is very likely to have the effect of creating a different game entirely -- certainly a different one that what has been called D&D for most of the game's existence." Wonder what he could have been referring to?

Quote from: Voros;965902Runequest was never out of print was it? Like CoC it is a game that has endured with more or less the same mechanics for decades.

Runequest was out of print for a good decade after third edition ('94 to 2006). CoC has a better track record in that regard. But I fail to see the relevance of that considering D&D has been in print with largely the same mechanics continuously for 40 years.

Quote from: Voros;965904The dirty secret of the OSR is that 'mantra' is borrowed from 'storygames' in concept if not exact wording. In fact that are several modern ideas of gaming promoted throughout the OSR and in Finch's Primer.

Is it a "modern" idea of gaming if the concept comes from the wargaming roots of the hobby and has been there all along?  Kind of hard to borrow something from someone that's been yours since before they were born, isn't it?

FWIW, I've noticed a marked difference in the classic modules I've been running and modern modules. The biggest difference is that, while you may have sequences of areas, the areas tend to be points of interest rather than sequences themselves, and the other thing is there's not a lot of effort to balance monster lairs in the sense of "A party of four should be able to murder their way through these rooms in a single day."

Quote from: Voros;965902Runequest was never out of print was it? Like CoC it is a game that has endured with more or less the same mechanics for decades.

Runequest in the form of Basic Roleplaying never been out of print. However the Glorantha setting was return to Greg Stafford who did his own thing with it separate with Chaosium until recently.

Quote from: CRKrueger;965950Not Gygaxian, of course not.  I mean just look at all those RPG gameworlds that came before OD&D...

That wasn't what I said at all. I just find it reductive to label Gygax's style as Gygaxian naturalism.

Quote from: estar;966000Runequest in the form of Basic Roleplaying never been out of print. However the Glorantha setting was return to Greg Stafford who did his own thing with it separate with Chaosium until recently.

You really can't consider Call of Cthulhu to be RuneQuest though. There underlying systems that are the same, but there are significant mechanical differences there. I started with Call of Cthulhu, and picked up RuneQuest thinking it would have the same degree of lightness, and I was very wrong. You can have the same core skill system and still build very different games on top of them.

Even within RuneQuest, you are going to find significant issues with conversion. You can't just pick up an RQ2 adventure and run it with RQ6/Mythras.

Quote from: Baulderstone;966005You really can't consider Call of Cthulhu to be RuneQuest though. There underlying systems that are the same, but there are significant mechanical differences there. I started with Call of Cthulhu, and picked up RuneQuest thinking it would have the same degree of lightness, and I was very wrong. You can have the same core skill system and still build very different games on top of them.

Basic Roleplaying has been a standalone product separate from Call of Cthulu and other Chaosium RPGs and has had support for the fantasy genre for a long time.

Quote from: Baulderstone;966005Even within RuneQuest, you are going to find significant issues with conversion. You can't just pick up an RQ2 adventure and run it with RQ6/Mythras.

Everybody realizes this. The point is that the fans of Basic Roleplaying in all its forms has enjoyed unbroken support from the parent company.

Hell, King Arthur Pendragon is a Basic Roleplaying derivative. It uses a d20 instead of d%, but the same character attributes, and the same basic mechanics, just at a coarser grain.

So, yes, BRP based games have been continually in print, but not always the same ones. CoC is probably the game that has changed least over the various editions, at least until the current one.