IMO, if it came out before 3e, then it's old school.

Is it the right definition? Don't know, don't care.

I distinguish between "Old School", which is a broad historical or aesthetic term, and "OSR," which is a term of art describing those games which consciously and deliberately derive themselves from Gygax-era D&D in reaction against WotC-era D&D and/or non-D&D games.

The OSR is a consumer base, not a game esthetic/description.

Quote from: 216V0 on March 11, 2025, 09:34:04 PMWhere would a hotpocket appear on the sandwich alignment chart?

By the chart...

Structure Rebel (while you can argue there's two pieces of bread, they're fused together with the contents inside, so "food enveloped in -any- way by a containing food"), Ingredient Neutral (the -default- Hot Pocket is chunks of ham or pepperoni slices, with cheese pieces, and while I want to say "sauce" it's more accurate to probably just call that grease.  I'd say it fits the "broader scope of savory ingredients", but I'm willing to concede that it's not so much the ingredients as their cut that makes me think "neutral".  So Ingredient Neutral with Purist tendencies?).

I mean, this is a thread for pedantry, right?  :-)

Anyone familiar enough with  RuneQuest, Legend, BRP or Gurps communities want to comment on what those folks think about the games being OSR or not?

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 12, 2025, 10:38:16 AMAnyone familiar enough with  RuneQuest, Legend, BRP or Gurps communities want to comment on what those folks think about the games being OSR or not?

These games are not OSR, they don't market themselves are OSR, and AFAICT the communities don't seem themselves as OSR either.

I must add this: RuneQuest, Legend, BRP are very similar. And the game simply didn't change in the last 40 years. There is no reason to even have an OSR.

D&D, OTOH, is now a very different game.

Which is one of the reasons I think OSR only makes sense within D&D. It is very specifically a reaction to the big changes in 3e (and even more) 4e.

BTW: GURPS didnt change that much either. There are still people that prefer 3e to 4e, although I don't really understand why, but the change is small enough that 3e/4e players are part of the same community in a way that 4e/5e D&D players are not.

Love alignment charts.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 11:35:05 AMI must add this: RuneQuest, Legend, BRP are very similar. And the game simply didn't change in the last 40 years. There is no reason to even have an OSR.

They don't change (much) in tone or style.  The basic mechanics are very similar, or at least you can chart a definite evolution (e.g. POW as attribute and magic points to POW as only attribute and magic points derived from it).  However, once you get past the basic mechanics there are a lot of mechanical differences, which then have side effects in skills, combat rules, monster listings, etc.  Yeah, not to the extreme that D&D does it over all its versions, but it's certainly there.

I can run Apple Lane in Legends with a "rough convert as I go" the same way you could run a B/X module in AD&D 2E.  However, it would be better to spend a little time and actually convert it, especially since the baseline assumptions on the numbers move too.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 12, 2025, 12:01:10 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 11:35:05 AMI must add this: RuneQuest, Legend, BRP are very similar. And the game simply didn't change in the last 40 years. There is no reason to even have an OSR.

They don't change (much) in tone or style.  The basic mechanics are very similar, or at least you can chart a definite evolution (e.g. POW as attribute and magic points to POW as only attribute and magic points derived from it).  However, once you get past the basic mechanics there are a lot of mechanical differences, which then have side effects in skills, combat rules, monster listings, etc.  Yeah, not to the extreme that D&D does it over all its versions, but it's certainly there.

I can run Apple Lane in Legends with a "rough convert as I go" the same way you could run a B/X module in AD&D 2E.  However, it would be better to spend a little time and actually convert it, especially since the baseline assumptions on the numbers move too.

Yes, exactly; maybe they are different like AD&D 1e is from 2e or B/X, but certainly not like 2e/3e, 3e/4e or 4e/5e.

Quote from: the crypt keeper on March 12, 2025, 10:09:24 AMThe OSR is a consumer base, not a game esthetic/description.

100% wrong. It is an esthetic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School_Renaissance

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 08:13:01 AMIf I can add my 2c:

OSR is "inspired by TSR D&D" by definition.

"Compatible with TSR D&D" is the most useful, IMO.

But the label is used as a "we think we can sell this to the OSR crowd" marker, which is why it sometimes include things like Mork Bork or Traveller clones.

(But you can have sci-fi OSR IMO, since AD&D has rules for Gamma World and Boot Hill conversions).

DCC is barely and doesn't call itself OSR. Cairn/Knave/Etc. are using "NSR" these days.

Knave, which the OP puts in the "any mechanics and any system", still use systems and mechanics that are reminiscent of D&d, such as the six ability scores, saves, HD, etc.

If there was one major thing I'd change, is I'd swap Knave and DCC places, my probable mindset when making this was probably that, at least "early" on in the OSR for whatever reason DCC was sort of included and thought of in the OSR sphere, though I am aware it has some radical departures.

Another thing I'd probably change is Have the structure columns go from Purist being TSR Clone, neutral being TSR compatible, and radical being incompatible.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 11:35:05 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 12, 2025, 10:38:16 AMAnyone familiar enough with  RuneQuest, Legend, BRP or Gurps communities want to comment on what those folks think about the games being OSR or not?

These games are not OSR, they don't market themselves are OSR, and AFAICT the communities don't seem themselves as OSR either.

I must add this: RuneQuest, Legend, BRP are very similar. And the game simply didn't change in the last 40 years. There is no reason to even have an OSR.

D&D, OTOH, is now a very different game.

Which is one of the reasons I think OSR only makes sense within D&D. It is very specifically a reaction to the big changes in 3e (and even more) 4e.

BTW: GURPS didnt change that much either. There are still people that prefer 3e to 4e, although I don't really understand why, but the change is small enough that 3e/4e players are part of the same community in a way that 4e/5e D&D players are not.

I have to say that I find your outlook fascinating. I am not sure how you draw these conclusions and you are welcome to them. I also have run RQ here and there and I run old school editions, including the re-release of RQ2 and while I am not wearing an OSR hat or vest while doing so, I am participating in an older style of play, which is what it is about. You are still free to call it what you will though.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on March 11, 2025, 09:17:22 PM

Here is one for sandwiches.

I have no real experience with the OSR but anyone who thinks a pop tart is a sandwich needs to be permanently banished to the tumblr wastelands of the internet.       I'm also slightly offended that a hotpocket didn't make any category.

Quote from: bat on March 12, 2025, 01:25:21 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 11:35:05 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 12, 2025, 10:38:16 AMAnyone familiar enough with  RuneQuest, Legend, BRP or Gurps communities want to comment on what those folks think about the games being OSR or not?

These games are not OSR, they don't market themselves are OSR, and AFAICT the communities don't seem themselves as OSR either.

I must add this: RuneQuest, Legend, BRP are very similar. And the game simply didn't change in the last 40 years. There is no reason to even have an OSR.

D&D, OTOH, is now a very different game.

Which is one of the reasons I think OSR only makes sense within D&D. It is very specifically a reaction to the big changes in 3e (and even more) 4e.

BTW: GURPS didnt change that much either. There are still people that prefer 3e to 4e, although I don't really understand why, but the change is small enough that 3e/4e players are part of the same community in a way that 4e/5e D&D players are not.

I have to say that I find your outlook fascinating. I am not sure how you draw these conclusions and you are welcome to them. I also have run RQ here and there and I run old school editions, including the re-release of RQ2 and while I am not wearing an OSR hat or vest while doing so, I am participating in an older style of play, which is what it is about. You are still free to call it what you will though.

I think my conclusions are explained in my post, but let me know if anything is unclear.

RQ 2 is certainly "old school" because it is an old game/style, but runequest is not part of the "OSR" (old school renaissance) as defined by most OSR products (and wikipedia etc).

Notice neither RQ 2 or the current Runequest use the OSR label (nor does GURPS or TFT).

These games do:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?ruleSystem=45582-old-school-revival-osr

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 12:42:50 PMYes, exactly; maybe they are different like AD&D 1e is from 2e or B/X, but certainly not like 2e/3e, 3e/4e or 4e/5e.

Specifically, my point is that RQ is somewhere in between.  Could argue whether RQ2 or 3 to MRQ or Legends is closer to a B/X to 2E conversion or a 2E to 3E conversion in difficulty.  However, there is definitely and notably more effort involved in doing it cleanly for the RQ conversion than the B/X to 2E side.  If the GM doesn't care about making a clean conversion (perhaps justly, if only for themselves, running it on the fly), then it is a little murkier.

Of course, that invokes a whole other line of thought on slow-boil changes through modest version changes or rapid, notable version changes.  People think RQ didn't change much, because in any one version, it doesn't.  If you built a character in RQ 1 and took it through all the changes as the new editions gradually came out, it would hardly register.  There's no shock like there is in say, 2E/3E.  If you try the same trick going RQ 1 to latest Legends, it won't seem all that shocking at first, but the overall effort is going to about the same as 2E/3E, because the only practical way to do it is to take the concept and then rewrite the character from scratch, using the old character only as a rough guideline.

A similar dynamics happens when going Champions 1 to Champions 6, though that is more about redoing all the math, since the names of the mechanical widgets mostly stay the same.

Whereas, with D&D, it's the crazy jump with 3E and the even crazier jump with 4E that stands out.  If you want to go, say, AD&D 1E to 5E, then yeah, it's still rewrite using old character as concept, but it isn't any more difficult or time consuming than a several edition jump in Hero or RQ.  It's different kind of jump, that some people will find more or less annoying and puzzling, because of where the changes occur, but that's not the same as the difficulty of it inherently.

Personally, I found the Hero 4E/5E conversion so plain annoying that I refused to do it.  Same as the D&D 3E/3.5 jump.  I've got a better use of my time than redoing all the accounting for so little gain in clarity, prep time, or features.