Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 03:28:32 PMOK, I'd appreciate it if you told me where my understanding fails on this subject.

OK so the first thing to understand the final piece of the OSR puzzle fell into place when Chris Gonnerman of Basic Fantasy, Matt Finch and Stuart Marshall of OSRIC realized that if you take the open content of the d20 SRD stripped out the newer mechanics what left is a hop and a skip from a classic edition.

But even so, it takes a lot of work to turn that into something like Basic Fantasy and OSRIC and there was legal risks involved as nobody tried to make a retro-clone before. The closest attempt was Castles and Crusades and Troll Lords opted to design a drop-in replacement instead.

OSRIC, and Basic Fantasy came out, didn't get sued into oblivion then we get Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, and by 2010 we are off to the races.

Now step back and thinks about what happen for a second. Somebody took content, the d20-SRD that is OPEN for ANYBODY to use under the OGL. And repurposed this to make a retro-clone. Yeah it took some imagination to see how to do this in the first place, and yeah some balls to undertake the legal risk.

But once that was accomplish the "hack" to get a classic edition out in print again is literally open for anybody else to use. It not like GURPS or Savage Worlds where the author/company controls the IP. And Dan Proctor was one of the first to realize this and put in the work to make Labyrinth.

Now, someone might be thinking, "But yeah, all they are doing is making clones of existing IP. What the innovation in that?" Sure but is that all you can do when you start stripping the D20 SRD and rebuilding it?

Of course not. 

You could do something different, which where I enter the picture and where folks like James Raggi enter the pictures. I slapped a skill system on top of Swords & Wizardry added some classes that reflect some common character types found in my GURPS campaign, a few house rules, and came out with my Majestic Wilderlands. James Raggi took his ideas about systems and weird horror and came out with Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Now, both of our efforts will still be very much in the classic D&D ballpark. That is not the point. What is needed to be understand is that I didn't ask anybody for permission, nor did James Raggi, Dan Proctor, and others. We had our ideas and ran with it. Hell, my Majestic Wilderlands is basically a second-generation system because I built on top of Finch's Swords & Wizardry Core as it, too, was 100% open content. I told Matt Finch what I was doing and he was OK with it, but I didn't ask permission because that was already given in the OGL license for his S&W SRD.

OK so now we are talking 2010 to 2012 and a bunch of folks STILL doing D&D shit. But again think about it. Since nobody in that wave of releases was asking permission beyond making sure they followed the OGL. What to stop people from taking it even further afield?

Nothing.

Now, there are compelling reasons to stick with classic systems. For me, it was because my focus was and still remains on making Sandbox settings and adventures. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel with a system. I knew the size of the D&D audience and wanted my material to be as accessible as possible. So I choose to use D&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry.

You have to keep that in mind when you look at the OSR. Everybody participating is choosing to do what they do free from any legal or logistical requirement to adhere to a particular standard. The reason that classic editions of D&D dominate the OSR is that presented with the available options, they choose to work with classic D&D rather than something else.

But this is not sufficient to bring about the OSR. The other key is the revolution of digital technology and the internet and its impact on publishing and distributing books. The key moment for that side was the maturing of Lulu and Print on Demand in the late 2000s. This had two key impacts. One was that capital barriers dropped to low levels, to the point where the major cost is the amount of time you have to realize your vision. The second impact with hard work, some skills, and a little luck, a author can bootstrap themselves from releasing PDFs with $100 budgets for art to full scale print runs without having to dip into saving or raise capital.

Finally, this got accelerated in the late 2010s with the arrival of Kickstarter and crowdfunding. For most, like myself, it still was a slow process of building up but the odds of something catching on resulting in a major boost grew by an order of magnitude. Mostly because crowdfunding sites merged social media outreach with funding.

Now you are probably going "Rob what does has to do with my points, heck what does this has to do with what the OSR is not good at."

Because the combination of open content IP, low capital threshold, and efficient distribution via the internet means people with "crazy" ideas can realize them in a work that is every bit as professional as those released by top-tier RPG companies within the time and budget they have for a hobby. In your case, you could pursue creative ideas that are felt to be neglected or ignored. Or felt to be poorly done, like firearms. There is no point of control that allows somebody or a group to stop that individual from releasing that work in the form they want.

The other side effect is that projects can be sustained comfortably for a long time with audiences in the hundreds. I am not just talking about the business side, I am talking about the creative side as well. Who wants to continue sharing after releasing something and six months later have ten downloads and zero feedback. However, if you manage to get a couple of dozens folks talking with you, perhaps gaming with you, suddenly doing the extra work in design and presentation feels like it worth it.


So I know the explanation is long but it why the OSR is what it is and why it definitely not a walled garden.

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 11, 2025, 03:28:32 PMAll 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.

Excellent! So when you firm up your project idea start getting involved in talking about it here or other forms of social media. The goal for your first project should get enough folks interested to get a 100 sales your first year. From my experience, that seems to be the threshold where folks feel that their hobby time was worth it. As for the money, try to get between $3 to $5 in profit. It not about the money it about feeling that the extra time pursuing your creative vision was worth it. And again from experience having $200 to $400 after that first year seems to be the threshold.

Afterward, take it at whatever pace you are comfortable with and have the time and resources for it.

Hope this helps, and feel free to message me if you need advice or help.

Quote from: Corolinth on March 11, 2025, 09:25:53 PMYou 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.

Yeah that sounds nice and all as a counterpoint until you look here

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/metal.php?

and realize that out of the thousands of products bought and sold on DriveThruRPG, only .18%, or 286 products, hit Adamantine, and .35%, or 551 products, hit Mithral. That list includes recognized leaders like Chaosium, Mongoose, Pinnacle, etc.

But how big is DriveThruRPG really? It turns out if you happen to have a steady seller like I do in Blackmarsh, you look at the order number of your first customer in January and track that over the years. 

Which I did



But since we don't know what are all the uses of order numbers probably they didn't have 4,672,383 sales in 2023. But we can say they have ten times the volume in 2023 compared to 2008. That the pandemic in 2020 caused nearly a 50% boost in sales.

While metal levels only offer a ballpark figure, we can see how an OSR RPG with gun combat is doing relative to a non-OSR RPG with gun combat.

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 05:32:18 PMThe OSR existed prior to Targa speaking as someone who was involved with Targa

True, I should have said with focus and some organization. An old school way of playing has been around since before the internet was popular by placing notices on physical bulletin boards, if we want to be specific. I believe TARGA was one of the first 'watering holes' for people to gather, on the Yahoogroup, in significant numbers, although newsgroups probably were peak in numbers, not participation, I was never a big fan of newsgroups.

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 06:33:25 PMI'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.

I disagree that either side of our debate is about popularity or marketing. He is saying the OSR chokes experimentation; I contend it is the opposite. I just wrote a post detailing how I feel the logistics of the OSR enables creative freedom and, heck, creative anarchy.

I didn't mention that the two broad conditions I talked about, freely available IP and the use of digital technology for production and distribution, have a positive effect on the creative diversity of any system. The OSR is not special because it uses classic D&D. Cepheus has ignited a similar creative storm among Traveller fans, and fans of d100 RPGs (Runequest, Mythras, BRP) are at the start of their creative storm.

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 06:33:25 PMI'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.

First, I take issue with any characterization of the OSR as a walled garden which I addressed in another post.

To discuss your main point, popularity only matters at the low end of the scale. A hobbyist who takes the time to do the extra work to make a publishable work isn't going to build on their creative ideas if they have a handful of downloads/sales/responses in a year. It will wind up as a creative deadend regardless of the merits. The incentive isn't there for most folks under those circumstances.

On the flipside, a threshold exists beyond which many hobbyists will continue developing their creative ideas. There is enough downloads/sales/responses that the author feels their work has been rewarded whether it is financial or social.

What is that threshold? Well, my best guess is that it is in the low hundreds. Back in 2015, for example, we would have had to rely on a lot of anecdotal evidence. But these days, we can look at crowdfunding numbers and see who does projects over and over again and who doesn't. I recommend focusing on modest successes like those with a couple of hundred backers and thousands of dollars raised.

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 06:33:25 PMto use an obvious example, Pundits products are *qualitatively* good by my standards of the OSR, as are yours.

Appreciate the compliment.

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 06:33:25 PMMy 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?

First a bit of a flippant remark I guess I will find out in late April when I do my Majestic Fantasy Realms, Northern Marches kickstarter. Kelsey and her team hit 1,000,000 on the first day of their Western Reaches KS also, in part, a hexcrawl formatted setting.

On a more serious note, no I don't worry about the Shadowdarks and the OSEs of the OSR. It is a post scarcity economy as far as I am concerned.

Why? Because the pool we are all pulling from is much vaster than what any of the OSR publishes have achieved. In short we haven't reached peak OSR.

For example, Shadowdark pulled in about 13,000 backers, Dolmenwood around 10,000. When you look at the bigger RPG kickstarters like those for Free League and 5e like Matt Colville. My view is that we are long way from whatever upper limit there is.

This may be more important in the long run.

Let's look at 5e, we have a dominant publisher who controls the IP, Wizards of the Coast. So if their sales and popularity sink, what else sink all those who support 5e 'as is'.

The same thing happens with Paizo, Pathfinder, and third parties.

Look at Evil Hat, Fate, and third parties.

In all these cases, we have a dominant publisher who sets the creative agenda upon which the fortunes of third parties rise and fall.

The OSR in contrast, doesn't have a dominant publisher setting the creative agenda. This is a unique situation at the moment. Because of that we will have to see how it plays out. But keep in mind in 2014 Labyrinth Lord was THE place to go for B/X D&D. Dan Proctor took a step back, now much was happening in the B/X space. Then OSE happened. It wasn't overnight but it reached a tipping point where it became THE place to go for B/X D&D. The same with the DCC RPG a decade, and the same thing recently with Shadowdark.

So my best guess is that the OSR will continue to grow. It won't dominate the RPG hobby but be far more substantial than it is now. Then, it eventually hits a steady state as companies and individual authors enter and exit. With the caveat that no Black Swan events occur. Also we will get a better sense as time goes by of the ebbs and flows of a OSR style niche.

Also if any one OSR company grows "that big" like Paizo size in its heyday? Then it will become its own niche with its own distinct creative agenda. The closest example we have now would be Goodman Games. While not Paizo-size, it has its own distinct creative agenda and niche.

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 06:33:25 PMMY 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.

I am self-aware enough to tell you why I do the things I do with classic D&D mechanics. But I am not a good source to answer your question because my approach with D&D mechanics is basically the same as my approach with GURPS mechanics. And yes I will be happy to explain the details of this if you like but that not germane to answering your question. However, my approach is atypical based on what I experienced as a player.

What I experienced as a player is a couple of things.

1) While it is not ALL about adventuring, a large part is. Classic D&D combat, spellcasting, and what classes can and can't do more than covers what is needed for a campaign focused on adventuring.

2) The mechanics are straightforward, particularly for B/X D&D which is by far the most popular foundation on which OSR hobbyists like to build. To specific B/X mechanics with AD&D 1e stuff. Second in popularity are minimalist D&Dish systems like Black Hack, Shadowdark, Mork Borg. The ones that rise to top are those where the author successfully designed every subsystem to pull its weight.

3) Everything beyond spellcasting and combat is idiosyncratic. If it wasn't something addressed in B/X D&D then the OSR is all over the map as to how stuff outside of spellcasting and combat is handled. I am not talking just about publishers but also individual campaigns. However, while the mechanics may vary, there is a strong "OK that makes sense for your character." thread.

4) There is a strong tendency toward minimalism. Yes we have ACKS II but is because Macris is being through not about him making the second coming of GURPS Vehicles or Hackmaster 4e. The guts of his work still rest on the B/X foundation I mentioned earlier.

5) OSR folks like being able to use other OSR folk's stuff. This not about open content. They like being able to pick up a module or a setting and, with some light adjustments, use 'as is' with whatever OSR system they like. The sheer volume of supplemental material is an important reason why the OSR remains centered on classic D&D rather iterating into using something very different. I have picked up Shadowdark zines and most of it was useful for my Majestic Fantasy RPG campaign.

Quote from: tenbones on March 11, 2025, 06:33:25 PMIf 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.

There are three options, in my opinion, that lead to a successful OSR system.

1) It is presented with a distinct voice with a clear creative agenda. ACKS, DCC RPG, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Mork Borg, and my own Majestic Fantasy Rules are examples of this.

2) It is well presented. I am not talking "oh that good" presentation, I am talking "OMG that fucking great" presentation. That was the key to OSE's success and the core retro clone successes like OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry.

3) It is well designed. ACKS fall into this as well as Shadowdark and the various Kevin Crawford titles like Worlds without Number. Again like presentation the design can't be just good, it "has to be OMG that fucking good.

But none of these matter if nobody knows about it which is why all of the above authors participated in the OSR community social media. Just as important, they came across as authentic and passionate about their creative vision.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

OSR is bad at emulating rules other than past editions of D&D? As interesting as OSR might get, it's ultimately just an extension of the D&D genre. (I consider D&D it's own genre at this point.)

We don't have anything similar for other genres, even though we really should. There's numerous past games and settings that have been abandoned and deserve to come back into the limelight. The neglected D&D settings like Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Ravenloft and Eberron are some examples, but there's plenty of non-D&D TSR settings that deserve better, and plenty of non-TSR games and genres.

X-Files-inspired conspiracy technothrillers, Y2K era space opera kitchen sinks, Dresden Files-esque urban fantasy, historical fantasy, alternate history, postapoc, etc.

Back in the 2000s Eden Studios produced All Flesh Must Be Eaten and got a ton of mileage out of the zombie genre. There were numerous settings or "deadworlds" with wildly different takes on zombies, such as nazi zombies, alien zombies, cyborg zombies, ice cream zombies, etc.

We need that kind of creativity and density in other genres. I am sick to death of the oversaturated D&D genre.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 12, 2025, 10:09:54 AMOSR is bad at emulating rules other than past editions of D&D? As interesting as OSR might get, it's ultimately just an extension of the D&D genre. (I consider D&D it's own genre at this point.)

I could be wrong, but I think its not that non-D&D games don't have "OSR" type games so much as they aren't considered OSR by the D&D fans.

Quote from: estar on March 12, 2025, 12:48:21 AM...I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Good stuff man. I appreciate your opinions as always. Heh, and I'm not being flippant about any of this - I'm also working on entering the fray. Information like this is invaluable.

Hmmmm.

You can certainly have good superhero OSRish games (Kevin Crawford has a couple IIRC), or in any genre.

Of course you can do OSR gun combat, since Boot Hill.

The problem is, the OSR label is most useful when it means "compatible to TSR D&D", and - while Boot Hill and gamma World are in theory compatible with AD&D - certain superhero tropes might not be.

So, since OSR is basically "compatible to TSR D&D", anything that gets TOO far from the original is not ideal. But you can make a case for almost anything.

For example, in theory you can have an OSR game with no magic, monsters, or classes, but why call it OSR at this point? Why make it compatible to D&D if you're not using the adventures, spell lists, monster manuals, etc.?

EDIT: one thing that comes to mind is that this OSR is a bit geared towards "zero to hero" progression, so it'd be difficult to have an OSR where you play as ordinary people that don't improve much, or that you are superheroes that don't change much either. OTOH msot people find "zero to hero" too extreme and prefer playing levels 3-10...

Quote from: estar on March 11, 2025, 08:51:45 AM

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2025, 01:56:07 AMestar - all of the games that you're mentioning are more-or-less in the same genre as D&D, though.

As for OSR system addressing different genres there is White Star, Stars without Numbers, Cities without Number, and so on.

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2025, 01:56:07 AMThe question in this thread is about doing different genres. If a game doesn't have classes or levels, or six attributes, and isn't fantasy genre, then should it really be considered in the OSR?

No. But like the MCC RPG from Goodman Games, the company or author may deliberately cultivates an OSR audience. When this happens the author or company has a track record supporting classic edition mechanics or themes.

I said this numerous but the OSR is comprised of folks who promote, play, and publish for classic editions of D&D and other things that interest them. Goodman Games is one of the best example of a company creating a novel system that deliberately cultivated an OSR audience. Kevin Crawford is another who built a reputation on leveraging classic edition mechanics for different genre then later returns to fantasy (Worlds without Number, Spears at Dawn, Scarlet Heroes).

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2025, 01:56:07 AMTo be concrete - Socratic-DM suggests that John Harper's World of Dungeons is OSR. Suppose I write up a "World of Apocalypse" that is a simpler variant of Apocalypse World along the same lines. Would that be in the OSR?

He is trying to cultivate an OSR audience, so yes.

QuoteWorld of Dungeons is a simple, quick-play, dungeon crawling game, using one of the core mechanics from the Powered by the Apocalypse rules system.

It's compatible with Old School Renaissance and original D&D monsters, dungeons, and adventure modules.

It part of the constellation I mentioned sitting alongside projects like Mork Borg. Which also identifies itself as being part of the OSR.

However while thematically it trying to appeal to the OSR, mechanically it will be its own thing like the DCC RPG, like Mork Borg. Something that will be of interest but if it catches on will develop it own orbit of supplemental material catering to its specific sensibilities and mechanical quirks.

We are 18 years in, there are numerous examples of RPGs like World of Dungeon catering to the OSR and what happens to them over time. It not fuzzy or mysterious. If the author succeeded as they claim

QuoteIt's compatible with Old School Renaissance and original D&D monsters, dungeons, and adventure modules.

and 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.

However a major strike is using itch.io as their only store front.

Estar, I havent read all your posts but I'll try a brief caveats/nitpicks because I value your opinion.

MCC RPG is not a huge departure from old-school D&D with its weirdness, androids, tharks, strange artifacts, spaceships, etc.

TBH is not exactly the same kind of game as Mork Borg, because IMO TBH and many OSR games including Knave is trying are trying to play D&D in an easier/better way.

Mork Bork seems to be exactly what you're saying: pandering to the OSR crowd without actually being OSR.

BTW, here is a list of games labeled "OSR games" by themselves; it is basically D&Dish stuff.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/browse?ruleSystem=45582-old-school-revival-osr&src=fid45582

As for MW, I think, as I mentioned above:

"EDIT: one thing that comes to mind is that this OSR is a bit geared towards "zero to hero" progression, so it'd be difficult to have an OSR where you play as ordinary people that don't improve much, or that you are superheroes that don't change much either. OTOH most people find "zero to hero" too extreme and prefer playing levels 3-10..."

MW seems to be firmly OSR IMO, whether it stays in the low levels or not.

Quote from: tenbones on March 12, 2025, 10:55:29 AMGood stuff man. I appreciate your opinions as always. Heh, and I'm not being flippant about any of this - I'm also working on entering the fray. Information like this is invaluable.

Glad to have helped.

Ultimately, the idea is to take a survey of what was done recently and back in the day. After that make your own call on what to do with it.

What I wrote about the topic back in 2009.

QuoteTo me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

What I can help with is my experience with the consequences of various creative choices and questions about logistics.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on March 12, 2025, 11:50:29 AMHmmmm.

You can certainly have good superhero OSRish games (Kevin Crawford has a couple IIRC), or in any genre.

Of course you can do OSR gun combat, since Boot Hill.

The problem is, the OSR label is most useful when it means "compatible to TSR D&D", and - while Boot Hill and gamma World are in theory compatible with AD&D - certain superhero tropes might not be.

So, since OSR is basically "compatible to TSR D&D", anything that gets TOO far from the original is not ideal. But you can make a case for almost anything.

For example, in theory you can have an OSR game with no magic, monsters, or classes, but why call it OSR at this point? Why make it compatible to D&D if you're not using the adventures, spell lists, monster manuals, etc.?

EDIT: one thing that comes to mind is that this OSR is a bit geared towards "zero to hero" progression, so it'd be difficult to have an OSR where you play as ordinary people that don't improve much, or that you are superheroes that don't change much either. OTOH msot people find "zero to hero" too extreme and prefer playing levels 3-10...

What I mean is, I'd like to have more retroclones of other games like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Dark•Matter, Urban Arcana, etc. as well as decentralized production for those genres in general. But I suppose that's a pipe dream

Quote from: estar on March 12, 2025, 12:48:21 AMIn short we haven't reached peak OSR.

For example, Shadowdark pulled in about 13,000 backers, Dolmenwood around 10,000. When you look at the bigger RPG kickstarters like those for Free League and 5e like Matt Colville. My view is that we are long way from whatever upper limit there is.

This may be more important in the long run.

Let's look at 5e, we have a dominant publisher who controls the IP, Wizards of the Coast. So if their sales and popularity sink, what else sink all those who support 5e 'as is'.

The same thing happens with Paizo, Pathfinder, and third parties.

Look at Evil Hat, Fate, and third parties.

In all these cases, we have a dominant publisher who sets the creative agenda upon which the fortunes of third parties rise and fall.

The OSR in contrast, doesn't have a dominant publisher setting the creative agenda. This is a unique situation at the moment.

I tend to agree, but I also suspect that if OSR does reach its peak, that there will become a dominant publisher.

Look at Paizo and Evil Hat. In the early 2000s, there were two booms of RPGs - the myriad of D20 games and supplements, and the Forge/post-Forge boom of story games. However, within a decade, Paizo would completely dominate the D20 space, and Evil Hat would come to dominate the story game space - mostly with FATE books.

Arguably, Powered-by-the-Apocalypse is still a movement like the OSR. Evil Hat publishes some PbtA games, but there are still lots of PbtA games by a variety of publishers. The biggest Kickstarter was Avatar Legends by Magpie Games.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 12, 2025, 01:37:12 PMWhat I mean is, I'd like to have more retroclones of other games like Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Dark•Matter, Urban Arcana, etc. as well as decentralized production for those genres in general. But I suppose that's a pipe dream

AS far as Gamma World, have you looked at Sorcery & Super Science?

I've looked at a number of games spanning decades. I use the Mutant Future wiki for research.

Quote from: Fheredin on March 11, 2025, 09:50:37 PM

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.

In my opinion those either don't count because they're not really rpgs (always hated The Forge) and they're more like storygames, or because they're not really new. Dread and Forge games are somewhat old at this point. PbtA isn't new either and it's pretty oversaturated. The concept of a metacurrency definitely doesn't count as new. Neither does using tag words and phrases like FATE does.

OSR games, while they're based on even older stuff in early D&D, are much more creative in implementation and settings. There are games that branch out into different genres, including other subgenres of fantasy. Or in Pundit's case, eras of real history. It has a lot more vitality because it's largely a grassroots movement of dozens of different blogs, publishers, and individuals that tinker with it. There are new takes on systems all the time, like with inventory systems or mass combat for example. Since the focus is often on creating a wide open sandbox instead of a set adventure path, there's much more emphasis on the creation of tools and random tables to assist GMs with actually running games at the table. So it isn't just new games, it's ways of making everyone's existing games consistently fresh and interesting.

I'm mainly taking issue with what you said before, about OSR people being too concerned with purity to make anything new. That's the opposite of what they're doing.