Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 11:21:18 AMEstar, when I have talked to others about the OSR and returning to its roots when the term would encompass all old school games, I have been told that OSR is defined by D&D style of rules and none other. I find this to be a myopic outlook which ignores a tremendous amount of innovation that came out of the games past. Even Pundit has unequivocally said that OSR means D&D based only.

Knights & Knaves Alehouse may have sections for other games and Dragonsfoot has an other category, but more often than not the modern OSR has become a walled garden. IMHO, a walled garden that is growing in on itself and choking the life out of its possibilities.

You display a profound lack of understanding of what a walled garden is in the industry and hobby. Of how the OSR works and the diversity of works that people like myself choose to release under its label. This is not unlike the Pundit's own misconceptions and criticisms back in the early 2010s. So I give you the same challenge to you as I did him.

Make a project and release it. If needed, use the available open content. Use DriveThruRPG or itch.io as your storefront. Show the rest of us poor benighted fools in the OSR how things ought to be done. Use those neglected ideas to their fullest in a work that takes advantage of those concepts.

If you need help or advice as to the logistics, then ask. While in the middle of my own project I always have time for questions.

Because the OSR is about as far away as one can get in this industry. In nearly all but a handful of other niches, it is a world of IP restrictions and strict creative supervision.

Because OSR today is shaped by those who do and has been since it founding in the mid 2000s. Shaped by those who play, those who promote, and those who publish.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/those-who-do-and-old-school-renaissance.html

There's a couple of types of play that I haven't seen done well in an OSR game.  The key word here is "well;" I've seen games have done a bit with these, but in a very cursory manner.  I'll admit up front that my experience with OSR is very limited, so I'd be interested in hearing about any counterexample.
    Survival play like journey through Mirkwood or Oregon Trail
    Movement challenges like those found in the Tomb Raider and Uncharted video games
    Stealth, as done in video games like Tenchu

Quote from: Corolinth on March 11, 2025, 12:58:45 PM

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 11:30:48 AMNothing is a deal-breaker of course. In the hands of a good GM nearly any system will work. I've long considered writing up my own OSR fantasy heartbreaker (and I have the skeleton of it).

I read that and immediately asked, "Why would I ever use that when I could just run Savage Worlds?" I am not shitting on your skeleton, I happen to like those rules, and that's sort of the point.

This is what I'm stuck with in Socratic-DM's question in the OP. I can understand saying that the OSR includes games that are in the same genre as D&D (dungeon-crawling fantasy) and have some common feel, even if they don't have classes or six attributes or d20 attacks or saving throws.

But if we then extend that to other genres, then what does it mean to be OSR?

For example, let's say I make an OSR game doing Lovecraftian horror. How will it be different from Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu?

Or if I make an OSR game for 1980s super-spies. How will it be different from the James Bond 007 RPG?

Why would I play the OSR game as opposed to the non-OSR game?

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 01:45:13 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 11:21:18 AMEstar, when I have talked to others about the OSR and returning to its roots when the term would encompass all old school games, I have been told that OSR is defined by D&D style of rules and none other. I find this to be a myopic outlook which ignores a tremendous amount of innovation that came out of the games past. Even Pundit has unequivocally said that OSR means D&D based only.

Knights & Knaves Alehouse may have sections for other games and Dragonsfoot has an other category, but more often than not the modern OSR has become a walled garden. IMHO, a walled garden that is growing in on itself and choking the life out of its possibilities.

You display a profound lack of understanding of what a walled garden is in the industry and hobby. Of how the OSR works and the diversity of works that people like myself choose to release under its label. This is not unlike the Pundit's own misconceptions and criticisms back in the early 2010s.

OK, I'd appreciate it if you told me where my understanding fails on this subject.

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 01:45:13 PMSo I give you the same challenge to you as I did him.

Make a project and release it. If needed, use the available open content. Use DriveThruRPG or itch.io as your storefront. Show the rest of us poor benighted fools in the OSR how things ought to be done. Use those neglected ideas to their fullest in a work that takes advantage of those concepts.

If you need help or advice as to the logistics, then ask. While in the middle of my own project I always have time for questions.

Because the OSR is about as far away as one can get in this industry. In nearly all but a handful of other niches, it is a world of IP restrictions and strict creative supervision.

Because OSR today is shaped by those who do and has been since it founding in the mid 2000s. Shaped by those who play, those who promote, and those who publish.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/those-who-do-and-old-school-renaissance.html

All right. Challenge accepted.

Logically, I'll start small and build up because I don't have the kind of finances needed to pay for art and other production costs. This may take a few years, but I'm in.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on March 11, 2025, 05:20:07 AMTrue based strongly on D&D style OSR does firearms poorly. I don't mean the occasional flintlock in a fantasy game, but a firearms based combat system.

D&D (every edition - not just the old ones) is a melee focused combat system with spells on top. Which is solid at what it does.

But for a firearms focused system to feel right IMO, you need to do things like slow down movement and make cover matter much more. That, and the HP bloat of D&D (while less in older systems than 3e/4e/5e) feels more wonky with firearms from a vibes perspective.

Firearms are the symptom of the deficiency, not the disease itself (it's noticing the headache, but missing the brain tumor).  The question is why OSR firearms rules feel off to so many people (including me, by the way)?  I would posit is primarily because firearms have so many additional factors describing their operation, and they fire so much faster.  And that's the key!

What OSR (and by extension, early D&D) does well is simulate results, not simulate actual events.  The origins of this genre are derived from wargaming.  Wargaming was not designed to simulate every swing or blow of a sword, every step or feint, every nick or scrape.  The rules were intended to simulate the outcome of all of those events.  It's the reason AD&D had one minute rounds; it had no desire to track the actual moment-by-moment actions in combat.  Instead, it focused on the general outcome of that one minute fighting.  Has your opponent been weakened, either by blows or fatigue?  If yes, then their HP is lessened (which is the only reason that HP works as a mechanic, because it abstracts wounds, fatigue, tactical position, etc.).  This is why, at least originally, I don't know anyone who thought of their to-hit roll as an actual swing of the sword.  It was the effect of cumulative swings, parries, and misses.  The loss of hit points is abstracting the actual events of a round in order to simulate the effect of the round on the combatants.  The combat "feels" right, because the outcome of the round (and the fight) feel right, not because the mechanics describe every swing and miss.

Compare this with something like GURPs and its 1 second turns. GURPS is trying to simulate the events occurring within the turn, model each swing or each step.  The game hopes that by simulating each act, it will also simulate the overall effect of the combat (it's up for debate as to whether this holds true...).

This has always been my argument against adding things like hit location, called shots, grappling or disarming rules, etc.  All of those are already expressed through the final effect of the round ("Did I lose HP?").  Attempting to simulate those specific acts is discordant with the abstracted nature of the combat round.  It is also the reason for more modern versions of D&D (3e+) having somewhat disjointed mechanics, as feats and maneuvers are slipping into direct simulation.

The only d20 firearm rules I've seen that I haven't been totally offput by are rules that maintain the high level of abstraction when it comes to the firing of the weapons and just focus on the effects.  The more that the rules delve into burst fire, cover, moving and firing, etc., the more they move D&D, and the OSR games, away from what they do well towards their only deficiency, which is modelling the events in combat.  OSR should stick to modelling the results.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 11:21:18 AMEven Pundit has unequivocally said that OSR means D&D based only.

He's wrong then, it is possible. I don't recall him in on the TARGA calls or even being part of TARGA which is where the OSR began.

Quote from: bat on March 11, 2025, 03:58:19 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 11:21:18 AMEven Pundit has unequivocally said that OSR means D&D based only.

He's wrong then, it is possible. I don't recall him in on the TARGA calls or even being part of TARGA which is where the OSR began.

The OSR existed prior to Targa speaking as someone who was involved with Targa

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 01:45:13 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 11:21:18 AMEstar, when I have talked to others about the OSR and returning to its roots when the term would encompass all old school games, I have been told that OSR is defined by D&D style of rules and none other. I find this to be a myopic outlook which ignores a tremendous amount of innovation that came out of the games past. Even Pundit has unequivocally said that OSR means D&D based only.

Knights & Knaves Alehouse may have sections for other games and Dragonsfoot has an other category, but more often than not the modern OSR has become a walled garden. IMHO, a walled garden that is growing in on itself and choking the life out of its possibilities.

You display a profound lack of understanding of what a walled garden is in the industry and hobby. Of how the OSR works and the diversity of works that people like myself choose to release under its label. This is not unlike the Pundit's own misconceptions and criticisms back in the early 2010s. So I give you the same challenge to you as I did him.

Make a project and release it. If needed, use the available open content. Use DriveThruRPG or itch.io as your storefront. Show the rest of us poor benighted fools in the OSR how things ought to be done. Use those neglected ideas to their fullest in a work that takes advantage of those concepts.

If you need help or advice as to the logistics, then ask. While in the middle of my own project I always have time for questions.

Because the OSR is about as far away as one can get in this industry. In nearly all but a handful of other niches, it is a world of IP restrictions and strict creative supervision.

Because OSR today is shaped by those who do and has been since it founding in the mid 2000s. Shaped by those who play, those who promote, and those who publish.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/those-who-do-and-old-school-renaissance.html

I'm going to point out that this is drifting from the actual intent of the thread. Respectfully Rob, you're talking, imo, more about Marketing than what I think this thread is actually about. There is something to be said about the connection between the market success of a product and its assumed quality - but we both know that's not the reality of reality.


To your point about popularity, without accusing you ad populum claims - I'm *agreeing* with you on the basis of longevity of the OSR. There are, however, many OSR products that aren't widely accepted by the larger gaming populace even within the walled garden. Perhaps you could speak to this better than I could. My perception *seems* to be that all OSR products, (to the point where I accept what you define as OSR) are 90% compatible with one another, yet the OSR products that are clearly making large sums of money, isn't translating to the rest of the OSR community. Or am I wrong? I'm not crapping on anyone or their product, I'm just asking as a relative outsider - to use an obvious example, Pundits products are *qualitatively* good by my standards of the OSR, as are yours. But you guys are doing well. But are the people that glommed onto Shadowdark and ACKS and DCC (OSR/not OSR) also eating up your guy's products too?

I don't feel that's true (which is a shame).

MY contention with the OSR, and what I thought this thread was *actually* about is talking about mechanics. I honestly do feel the OSR products have "something" that their consumers hang onto. I profess to not understand why, other than nostalgia, what that is.

If I produced an "OSR inspired" product - using all the d20 dice, and all my old Basic D&D assumptions outside of the mechanical oddities I feel are clunky - which to be clear, exist in other games, I suspect without *any* marketing material, most OSR people would write it off as a Fantasy Heartbreaker and ignore it.

I *feel* this is true about a lot of older systems. Even if you can claim that the style of fantasy being represented is "D&D" style: with Fighters, Clerics, Thieves etc. the majority of OSR players eat from their respective bowls, don't look up, unless there is some marketing push among those in the Walled Garden (and even then I'm skeptical that really happens).

TL/DR - Are you saying OSR is only for those that consume OSR and those outside the "Walled Garden" who want something more than "tradtional" OSR (whatever that is defined by those in the Walled Garden) aren't welcome? And this might just be the phenomenon of those consumers, not some overt intention.

Quote from: estar on March 10, 2025, 10:09:28 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 10, 2025, 09:31:10 PMThat said, I do not know OSR particularly well and I would welcome being proven wrong. Some example games and dissections of their major design pillars will do the trick. Shouldn't require more than about 150 words per example.

Well like Seinfeld, my Majestic Fantasy RPG is about nothing in particular other than function as a description of what characters and creatures can do in a medieval fantasy setting. And what they can do is described at a medium-low level of detail and encompasses most things you could expect folks could do as if the medieval fantasy setting actually existed.

You could use my system to run a campaign centered around a community of basket weavers along the river Tammuz in the Land of the Two Kings. With the players living out the life of some of the characters in that community. Although I don't think that would be a very likely campaign it is possible. Back in 92, I did with GURPS run a campaign of 50 pt characters (plus 25 pt of disads) that centered around the life of the neighborhood of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord.

I want to emphasize that the system theoretically supporting the GM doing something is not the same as having a game designed to do that thing, which is not the same as a game designed to do that specific thing meeting commercial success. Your game's example is arguably a modest success, but it isn't really designed to do your example.

I am not arguing that OSR can't be used to run a basketry game because a lot of RPGs can actually do that. There's a fair chance that a determined and knowledgeable GM could get most RPGs to do that, so you've actually proven more about what determined GMs can do and not what is actually uniquely true of the OSR space. If I can do this same thing in a pointedly not-OSR game like Genesys or World of Darkness, then what are you actually demonstrating?

QuoteWell that just the Roleplaying pillar right? No, because like GURPS, the focus of my system on what players could do, not on what they will be doing. GURPS and my Majestic Fantasy RPG doesn't care about the reason why a sword is swung, a spell cast, or a skill used. It just describes what could happen if that decision is made.

I think this is probably more on point than you realize. I imagine the way to make successful RPGs may be to build pillars on top of the D&D pillars, meaning that they basically contain the D&D design pillar, but it's also taking it in new directions. Call of C'thulu does this because the Exploration pillar has become Investigation, and in many ways Investigation could include almost all of Exploration, but it also carries a personality change because you aren't randomly poking around; you're looking for specific bits of information.

QuoteWrapping it up
There is nothing wrong with focusing a system on pillars or specific things. I am pointing out that there are other ways of approaching the issue especially with classic edition mechanics. For me, the reason I do things this way is because my stuff is about running and supporting sandbox campaigns. Where players are free to try to trash the setting as their characters in the manner they see fit.

Part of what I write is about letting go of any preconceived notion of how the campaign should go. That what important to this approach is preparing the setting of the campaign in a way that it has a life of it own. How to manage that life throughout the campaign in a way that makes sense given what the players do or don't do as their characters. The importance of communicating context so the players know what their characters would know given the circumstances.

None of this involves the use of a system but rather is advice for how the referee should manage and organize a sandbox campaign. Hence my choice where the system is just a description of what characters and creatures can do.

Finally the canvas I choose to paint this on is adapting OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry.

Wait a sec. How is OD&D not already Swords & Wizardry that you had to adapt it? I can see an argument that it wouldn't match specific subsets of the Swords & Wizardry genre, but on the whole I don't see anything needed to be "adapted." Can you explain this a bit?

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on March 11, 2025, 05:20:07 AMTrue based strongly on D&D style OSR does firearms poorly. I don't mean the occasional flintlock in a fantasy game, but a firearms based combat system.

D&D (every edition - not just the old ones) is a melee focused combat system with spells on top. Which is solid at what it does.

But for a firearms focused system to feel right IMO, you need to do things like slow down movement and make cover matter much more. That, and the HP bloat of D&D (while less in older systems than 3e/4e/5e) feels more wonky with firearms from a vibes perspective.

I can see that, but I also think that most RPGs in general struggle to handle firearms because of the turn structure. You can abstract at least a Hollywood sense of parry and riposte in sword combat to a few general turns decently well, but firearms put a whole lot of damage downrange really quickly and tend to resist being too abstract. On the contrary, the most successful firearms games appear to try to use the dice to literally translate tangible elements as closely as possible. Twilight 2K has ammunition dice, for example, which physically represent ammunition you are throwing downrange at the table.

And in my own game, things like manual lever or bolt action guns literally require you to spend an action point to work the action of the gun at some point during the round. These weapons are in many ways objectively worse than semiautomatics, but they tend to be popular with playtesters because they are high flavor. It feels right.

I would argue that this abrupt change from abstract to tangible means that you mostly have to pick and choose between D&D style sword combat and having modern firearms with any flavor, and you will likely also need specialist dice or action economy features designed just to support the firearms.

I think this is a fair example of something OSR probably won't ever do well. Firearms by their nature enjoy being tangible and precise, which leads designers towards Rube Goldberg contraption-like rules when implementing them, which will in turn tighten system control and rely less on GM intuition and freedom, making the game feel less OSR-y.

With firearms, I'm not sure all the influence runs from mechanics into genre.  There are apparently a sizable chunk of people like me that for whatever reason simply don't like having firearms--even primitive muskets--in their fantasy.  So I'm not going to explore house rules to make it work (except in a few niche cases where I go against inclinations to cater to a group), and I'm not going to be attracted to rules that solve what for me is a non-existent problem. 

You might say there is a certain amount of self selection bias going on in what rules end up supporting.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on March 11, 2025, 03:41:05 PMI would posit is primarily because firearms have so many additional factors describing their operation, and they fire so much faster.  And that's the key!

What OSR (and by extension, early D&D) does well is simulate results, not simulate actual events.  The origins of this genre are derived from wargaming.  Wargaming was not designed to simulate every swing or blow of a sword, every step or feint, every nick or scrape.  The rules were intended to simulate the outcome of all of those events.

While true to some degree, I've also played wargames which do firearms much better than D20/OSR.

IMO - a key aspect of firearms feeling right (especially if melee is also a thing) is a decent chance of being killed while closing to melee range. It's just far too easy IMO to close to melee and attack against foes with guns. While not OSR, I kinda hated Starfinder for the same reason. Being able to charge into melee from 20 yards away and take a swing all before the guy with a gun can get a shot off just feels wonky. That's rarely the case in a wargame. Even for something non-simulation like 40k, a good chunk of a unit is likely to be killed by firearms before they close to melee.

At the same time, it's often too easy to keep using guns at melee range.

IMO - firearms feel better in phase-based initiative systems which can help get the feel of firearms going before melee. Phases are something which wargames often do.

QuoteThe only d20 firearm rules I've seen that I haven't been totally offput by are rules that maintain the high level of abstraction when it comes to the firing of the weapons and just focus on the effects.  The more that the rules delve into burst fire, cover, moving and firing, etc., the more they move D&D, and the OSR games, away from what they do well towards their only deficiency, which is modelling the events in combat.  OSR should stick to modelling the results.

Yeah - I suppose if you keep it abstract then firearms are... fine. They just don't feel distinct from using anything else.

I think that firearm focused systems probably should lean into some level of cover/automatic fire etc. Though it's easy to get ridiculously crunchy etc. *cough* Shadowrun *cough*

I've been poking at a firearm heavy sci-fi system for a few years, so it's something I have pretty strong opinions on.

My biggest hot-take is to drastically slow base movement for firearm heavy systems so that cover/flanking and the danger of closing to melee matter more when you have to give up the round's attack to move much.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 10, 2025, 06:30:13 PMAllow me to speak as a pointedly NOT OSR indie designer.

OSR is good at marketing to its own community. If you are making an OSR game you can probably find your market pretty easily, so it is relatively easy to make OSR products which at least sell some copies and not impossible to make OSR content which sells really well. That is markedly less true of the broader RPG market, where marketing becomes difficult to impossible without a gigantic web presence. If I had to describe the OSR marketing experience I have seen with a metaphor, it's like fishing with a tidal pool. You don't have to have a boat or even a fishing rod; you just wait for the tide to go out and then grab a trapped fish with your bare hands. It's shocking how simple and reliable a technique this is.

That said, OSR is also limited by this. The OSR has a lot of grognard purity opinions ("this isn't OSR enough") which I don't pretend to understand beyond possibly being a mutant grandchild of OneTrueWayism. This means that the OSR community is one of the worst corners of the RPG space for exploratory design. OSR games may incorporate mechanics long after they are popularized by a few other games, and is rarely, if ever, the source of a new game mechanic. The OSR community is not going to let you take a fishing boat out to see and try to land a 30 pound grouper, or even just to write a game with the narrative of The Old Man and the Sea baked into something. Instead, OSR circles around established mechanics and design pillars quite tightly. Experimentation is at best not rewarded, and in some cases is met with open hostility.

If I had to describe OSR in brief, it's that it's something of RPG junk food. Sure, really good chefs can crush Cheetos and cover a steak in them, but by and large most people are into OSR for comfort food rather than personal growth, and a lot of the negative attitudes you see in the OSR remind me of children complaining when their parents tell them to eat their peas.

This is the opposite of the truth. OSR is probably responsible for most of the experimentation and new ideas coming into the hobby right now, for better or worse.

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2025, 03:06:22 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on March 11, 2025, 12:58:45 PM

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 11:30:48 AMNothing is a deal-breaker of course. In the hands of a good GM nearly any system will work. I've long considered writing up my own OSR fantasy heartbreaker (and I have the skeleton of it).

I read that and immediately asked, "Why would I ever use that when I could just run Savage Worlds?" I am not shitting on your skeleton, I happen to like those rules, and that's sort of the point.

Why would I play the OSR game as opposed to the non-OSR game?

You pose the driving question, and I'm increasingly convinced that the answer is contained in the second half of my reply to Tenbones - you wouldn't, but there are lots of people who will only play D&D. I think that's also the source of the resistance to including other old games under the umbrella of OSR.

I think there may also be an element of trying to hold on to a captive market.

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 08:51:45 AMand if it is fun to play and of good quality then like Mork Borg (Adamantine Seller) and Black Hack (Mithril Seller) they will enjoy steady stream of folks from the group who started out playing, promoting, and publishing for classic editions take interest in their system and start using it.

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 09:08:34 AMDoesn't seem to be an issue for White Star (Mithral Seller), Stars without Number (adamantine seller), or Cities without Number (mithral seller).

You say that like it means something. Adamantine is 5001 copies.

1) Lots of things that suck are popular.
2) Players of tabletop roleplaying games easily number in the millions.

To have an adamantine seller badge on Drivethru, you have to sell to less than 0.5% of the player base. I'm sure that's great for a small-time publisher to get that kind of numbers on a book. It's not an argument that the OSR systems do anything well. Especially when nobody in the OSR community accepts the same appeal to popularity as a valid argument regarding the obvious market leader.

Quote from: Spobo on March 11, 2025, 08:46:47 PMThis is the opposite of the truth. OSR is probably responsible for most of the experimentation and new ideas coming into the hobby right now, for better or worse.

Examples, please?

Bear in mind that NON-OSR games include thing like Dread, which uses a jenga tower, ultralight narrative games like Lady Blackbird, where you have to engage in roleplay to get Refreshes, all the PbtA and FitD games, and Blades includes clocks and a mechanic I can only describe as Just In Time inventory selection, and Cortex uses it's metacurrency Plot Points to create game feel.

I am not saying that I personally like all of these mechanics. Plot Points and Just In Time inventory irk me a significant amount. However, when you actually put the innovations in the broader RPG space in perspective (and this is by no means an exhaustive list) it becomes clear that there is a lot of experimentation in RPGs outside of OSR.

I suppose you can try to frame the argument into a specific range of years which favors OSR. I would say that there was a growth spurt of experimentation in RPG mechanics around the Winter of The Forge and the first few years afterwards and that experimentation has dwindled in more recent years. But I think that's more a product of the broader RPG market having a strong left political tilt and suffering from the associated brain-rot, and trying to frame this with an age range that favors OSR is probably a much harder task than you think.