Quote from: Tetsubo;866381I've produced hundreds of hours of entertainment using 'new school' games. The system isn't the issue.

Hell yes it's an issue! For every Testsubo who digs slaving over hot stat blocks, there are several people who find that a drag -- but have no problem making (or using) a quick and dirty mechanical write up that's just a fraction of a description mostly in plain language.

As other people have pointed out it's hard to be nostalgic for stuff you didn't play before. As a kid I got on board with the 90's style of play ("random encounters are a waste of time, they distract players from the PLOT!") since that was what was around at the time. Not really nostalgic at all for that. I like the OSR stuff before it's fun, not because of any specific memories.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

And I have not fallen victim to mindless neophilia.

So tongue my pee hole.

The funny thing is that anyone who still plays Pathfinder/3.x D&D can also be accused of playing for ~nostalgia~ at this point since that game is now two editions "out of fashion."

If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

Quote from: misterguignol;866745The funny thing is that anyone who still plays Pathfinder/3.x D&D can also be accused of playing for ~nostalgia~ at this point since that game is now two editions "out of fashion."

If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

Don't be silly! It was all advancement until Tetsubo's preferred edition came out, but it's been downhill ever since.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866748Don't be silly! It was all advancement until Tetsubo's preferred edition came out, but it's been downhill ever since.

* Orson Welles slow clap  *

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;866751* Orson Welles slow clap  *

I shall cherish this moment until the next time you tell me to tongue your pee hole.

It's fair to say that a sizable amount of the OSR's success is based on nostalgia. We can all argue about how sizable, but I know from actual play at conventions and FLGS game days, there is a lot of warm fuzzies about "the good olde days" at the OSR tables.

And that's not a bad thing, as long as new players and young players also feel welcomed.

Quote from: Trond;866096My impression is that OSR is mostly about D&D, and not other old games. I always liked Runequest (and even Rolemaster) more.

It's fair to say that majority of the OSR is focused on D&D Revivalism. However, there are some members who are breaking out other golden oldies as well.

I think the reason you don't hear about RQ and Traveller being discussed as much in OSR circles is because Mongoose has been printing new books for both for years now.

However, there are some retro-clones for non-TSR games too.

Quote from: Spinachcat;866766It's fair to say that a sizable amount of the OSR's success is based on nostalgia. We can all argue about how sizable, but I know from actual play at conventions and FLGS game days, there is a lot of warm fuzzies about "the good olde days" at the OSR tables.

If it's nostalgia, it seems to be mostly nostalgia for an era of gaming - the mid to late 70s - that most of the participants never themselves experienced.

I think the very early OSR or proto-OSR (Dragonsfoot, C&C, OSRIC) was based around 1e AD&D modules and module-based play (mostly competition modules), the era that began with Against the Giants and ended in the late 1980s. I think that nostalgia and simple continuity of play plays a big role there - a typical Dragonsfooter in 2002 probably was just playing the same way they had been doing in 1986.

But the more recent West Marches, Grognardia and post-Grognardia OSR seems much more about the sandbox hexcrawling and the megadungeon, styles already falling out of favour in the late 1970s and only ever experienced by a relatively small number of gamers at the time. If it's nostalgia, it's nostalgia for a mythic past, rarely nostalgia for our own remembered past.

Quote from: S'mon;866789But the more recent West Marches, Grognardia and post-Grognardia OSR seems much more about the sandbox hexcrawling and the megadungeon, styles already falling out of favour in the late 1970s and only ever experienced by a relatively small number of gamers at the time. If it's nostalgia, it's nostalgia for a mythic past, rarely nostalgia for our own remembered past.

I always find comments that I favor old games like OD&D because "nostalgia" to be very funny as it's hard to be doing something because of "nostalgia" when you have been doing it since 1975. I'm one of those rare people who has been doing sandbox "hexcrawling" and "megadungeons" since 1975.

I'd try newer rules sets/styles of play as they came out over the years but never enjoyed them enough to switch. If I liked rules in newer versions of D&D or other games, I just added them to my original D&D based game -- after all, to my mind RPG rules are all just guidelines for the GM to use or change as needed for the setting/campaign the GM is using.

New styles tend to turn me off because they stress things I find boring in fantasy RPGs:

a) Detailed combat that takes more than 5-10 minutes of real time to play out (on average)

b) having a preplanned story that the PCs are expected to move through more or less as planned.

c) set piece encounters

d) mechanics that do not fade into the background

e) characters that have to start as "big damn heroes" because the rules don't really include a way to start "below" that.

f) systems that leave out things like morale and assume that almost every encounter will be combat.

g) systems where character builds (especially pre-planned builds) are important

h) systems that do not work well with TOTM combat

i) innovation for innovation's sake

j) systems so tightly designed that they are hard to house rule.

k) systems that encourage tolerating munchkinism and rules lawyering

Apparently being having with the system one has instead of moving to every new thing as it comes out (even if it doesn't do your style of play any better than what you are using) is "nostalgia" to many gamers.

Quote from: aspiringlich;8664503.x and Pathfinder are OGL, but you don't see nearly the same amount of fan-generated material with those as with what's out there in the OSR.

REally? In the early aughts there seemed to be d20 products, blods, pdfs, webzines, online classes and support EVERYWHERE. That the system is 16 years old may have more to do with your perception that the new shiny OSR stuff is in more abundance.

Quote from: RandallS;866802I always find comments that I favor old games like OD&D because "nostalgia" to be very funny as it's hard to be doing something because of "nostalgia" when you have been doing it since 1975. I'm one of those rare people who has been doing sandbox "hexcrawling" and "megadungeons" since 1975.

Then you go in the 'simple continuity of play' box.

IME your kind are a small proportion of the active OSR. I don't think anyone at my London D&D Meetup has been playing since the '70s, but plenty of Old School D&D gets played alongside the 5e.

Quote from: TristramEvans;866821REally? In the early aughts there seemed to be d20 products, blods, pdfs, webzines, online classes and support EVERYWHERE. That the system is 16 years old may have more to do with your perception that the new shiny OSR stuff is in more abundance.

I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

Quote from: misterguignol;866745If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

True.

That's the fun thing about logic. Anything follows from a false premise.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866838I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

Well, "creativity" might be a bit generous in all fairness. There's a reason the D20 logo causes a bit of reflexive nausea in me these days.