Quote from: DavetheLost;854630Adventure Gaming works well for me. Some times I want to pretend to be somebody else, get all deep into role play and all that. Some times I just want to kill shit and take its treasure.

Since not all of us are great improv actors I hear a lot of "I tell the guard what we are doing here," around the gaming table. It works just fine and we all have fun.

Yeah with my students you get stuff like:

Student: OK, I throw a rock at the floor before entering the room.
Me: it goes right thought without making a sound then one second later you hear the sound of rock hitting metal.
Student: I'm not going in there.

or...

Me: so as the monster approaches you cast grease on the floor where you've laid all the caltrops. Aaaaaand... the monster falls down right on the spikes.
Student: I throw my torch at the greased floor.
Me: it lights on fire. The monster doesn't seem very happy about this. He's struggling to get up.
Student: awesome, I get ready to hit it! No, wait! I'll get burned. I get my ten foot pole and knock it down.
Me: *rolls* OK, you knock the monster back down on the flaming caltrops. It starts whining pitifully.

Pure D&D, not a single ounce of roleplaying. Roleplaying is nice icing on the cake but the freaking cake is interacting with the environment to get what you want, not roleplaying.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;854560Speaking for the Opposition, there are times I've been tempted to abandon RPG to the OSR and revive the term "Dramatic Adventure Game" from Dragonlance: Fifth Age.

How about expanding it to Dramatic Roleplaying Adventure Game Of Note, Leveraging a Nicely Chosen Environment For Intense Fun That Heralds A Grand Experience?

Quote from: Daztur;854675Yeah with my students you get stuff like:

Student: OK, I throw a rock at the floor before entering the room.
Me: it goes right thought without making a sound then one second later you hear the sound of rock hitting metal.
Student: I'm not going in there.

or...

Me: so as the monster approaches you cast grease on the floor where you've laid all the caltrops. Aaaaaand... the monster falls down right on the spikes.
Student: I throw my torch at the greased floor.
Me: it lights on fire. The monster doesn't seem very happy about this. He's struggling to get up.
Student: awesome, I get ready to hit it! No, wait! I'll get burned. I get my ten foot pole and knock it down.
Me: *rolls* OK, you knock the monster back down on the flaming caltrops. It starts whining pitifully.

Pure D&D, not a single ounce of roleplaying. Roleplaying is nice icing on the cake but the freaking cake is interacting with the environment to get what you want, not roleplaying.

What choo talkin about Willis? That right there is all role playing.

If you are taking actions and interacting with the environment in an imagined scenario then you are in fact role playing.

Speaking in a fake accent, attempting to justify your actions as "in character", or hell, even playing a character who isn't you are all just theatrics. What you described is pure role playing- making decisions based on the POV of being in the imagined situation.

Too much focus on the window dressing and theatrics has caused quite a few people to forget what actual role playing is all about.

Quote from: Warthur;854737How about expanding it to Dramatic Roleplaying Adventure Game Of Note, Leveraging a Nicely Chosen Environment For Intense Fun That Heralds A Grand Experience?

I see what you did there. But that sounds more suited to Castle Falkenstein.

Hmmm... Card-based Adventure Story-Telling Leisure Entertainment ...

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;854752I see what you did there. But that sounds more suited to Castle Falkenstein.

Hmmm... Card-based Adventure Story-Telling Leisure Entertainment ...

Faithfully Adapting Lifelike Keep Environments, Notionally Supporting Tales of Extravagant Intrigue Narratively?

Quote from: Exploderwizard;854743What choo talkin about Willis? That right there is all role playing.

If you are taking actions and interacting with the environment in an imagined scenario then you are in fact role playing.

Speaking in a fake accent, attempting to justify your actions as "in character", or hell, even playing a character who isn't you are all just theatrics. What you described is pure role playing- making decisions based on the POV of being in the imagined situation.

Too much focus on the window dressing and theatrics has caused quite a few people to forget what actual role playing is all about.

Yep. There is more to role playing than just improvisational method acting.  There is also the game aspect of RPG.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;854743If you are taking actions and interacting with the environment in an imagined scenario then you are in fact role playing.

Speaking in a fake accent, attempting to justify your actions as "in character", or hell, even playing a character who isn't you are all just theatrics.


Too much focus on the window dressing and theatrics has caused quite a few people to forget what actual role playing is all about.

HO!!!!!!  This is spot on here.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;854743If you are taking actions and interacting with the environment in an imagined scenario then you are in fact role playing.

Speaking in a fake accent, attempting to justify your actions as "in character", or hell, even playing a character who isn't you are all just theatrics. What you described is pure role playing- making decisions based on the POV of being in the imagined situation.

Too much focus on the window dressing and theatrics has caused quite a few people to forget what actual role playing is all about.

Yes. Cool. For ages I've been reading various forums and blogs and thinking what the fuck are these people even talking about? Doesn't anybody play the way I do anymore? Thank fuck.

Quote from: Paraguybrarian;854289For some reason, I'm surprised that the OSR movement hasn't tried to revive the older term "FRP" in place of RPG. To me, RPG is a term that has been (successfully) appropriated by the video game industry to cover a wealth of things not always related to pen and paper games.

Is it just the genre thing that the F implies? My oldest version of CoC is subtitled "Fantasy Roleplaying in the Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft" and I saw even Traveller referred to as an FRP back then, though not by the publisher.

On a psychological level, perhaps because not enough people have any particular positive association with the term? I recognize the term as the first term people started using to describe what we now know as Table Top RPGs after TSR started rabidly protecting their brand, but it has no particular emotional ressonance for me. "Role Playing Game" has a personal meaning to me, even if it is confusing for those who might more associate that with the computer games that were inspired by TTRPGs. "Old School" has such a positive emotional resonance that various groups are battling for the use of the term and arguing over who is genuinely old school. FRP is accurate (especially with the broader interpretation of the term 'fantasy'), but what advantage does it give a designer to include it on their product?

Quote from: Weru;854774Yes. Cool. For ages I've been reading various forums and blogs and thinking what the fuck are these people even talking about? Doesn't anybody play the way I do anymore? Thank fuck.

Damn straight.

Quote from: Brand55;854360Wait, so would Zweihander be considered OSR? Because when I hear FRP, the first thing that comes to my mind is Warhammer. FRP almost doesn't sound right to me without a W in front of it.

It sure is! However, ZWEIHANDER - at this point - resembles Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay only in passing. It is to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that Fantastic Heroes and Witchery is to OD&D: unique enough to stand on its own two legs. Meaning, it's not really a retroclone.

Just my two cents!

Quote from: Exploderwizard;854743If you are taking actions and interacting with the environment in an imagined scenario then you are in fact role playing.

Indeed, that's what was what was meant when the term was applied to D&D, though some would have you believe otherwise.

I sometimes use 'FRP' in my posts, because I picked up the term back in the '70s. I don't see from what it needs 'reclaiming', though, or what value (apart from liking 'retro' fashions) would be served by a concerted attempt to make it more widespread today.

The only shift in usage that occurs to me is one that seemed happened pretty early, the 'F' coming to refer specifically to fantasy as a genre as distinct from semi-historical or even science-fictional imaginings. Maybe it's tended since to get even more specific to a set of sub-genres typified by "sword & sorcery."

That people prefer to spell out 'fantasy' rather than abbreviate it presents a retro-style pleasure of its own, in an age seemingly awash in abbreviations and jargon cryptic to the uninitiated.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;854349Incorrect.

 It also includes multiple old school games: RuneQuest, Basic Role-Playing, Traveller,  Boot Hill, Rifts, Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, Marvel Super Heroes, Star Frontiers, Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Tunnels & Trolls, etc.

The OSR also includes the various retro-clones being published.

But it's never been limited to only D&D.

On the view that it means a renaissance in publication of material for out-of-print games, I reckon folks using the term started pretty quickly to notice things beyond the D&D domain. However, the phenomenon remains D&D-centric, with expanding rings of less closely related (or widely shared) affinities: other TSR products, other games in some regard similar to D&D, other games that were also popular in the neighborhood, etc.

Tunnels & Trolls, Chivalry & Sorcery, RuneQuest and other contemporaries were in various ways expressions -- sometimes trumpeting -- of philosophies their creators and enthusiasts saw in opposition to that of the "boss of the status quo" that old D&D was.

That can be even more pronounced today since differences often correspond to differences between the opposing schools of D&D. TSR's market was vast compared with its rivals', so when "old school" gets defined as an ethos the ones doing it with the loudest voice are coming from that mass. It's their view that, in the eyes of most folks who identify themselves with "the OSR", says which works (old or new) are included under the rubric.

People who are fans of this or that game but not of D&D are at a handicap if they wish to be widely regarded as "old school." From what I've seen, the views of fans of a game count for less than the views of it of never-played-it constructors of "old school" theory.

Quote from: DavetheLost;854364The OSR hasn't reclaimed FRP because the OSR does not exist as a monolithic entity.  The OSR is whoever wants to be OSR. Want publish an OSR game? Publish a game and call it OSR. Others may or may not agree that it is an OSR game, but there is no governing authority to make it stick.

That fact of life grates on some people's nerves. There's a practical consideration: If you're not allowed to refer to trademarks such as "D&D" because of the OGL, how do you capitalize on the network externalities of the plethora of variously named product lines that are about as compatible with yours as TSR's various lines were with each other?

Since "Old School" is not feasible to acquire as an actual legal trademark, the fight over who gets to use it is instead political.