The Swedish fantasy RPG Drakar & Demoner Expert from 1985 is something I would like to see a proper retro version of. Riotminds effort was pathetic. I also have high hopes for the upcoming new Swedish version of Chill (there was a straight translation back in the 80s), but the system will be different. I just hope the feel of the original Pacesetter game is respected.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1098063No, OSR as a D&D level / class based system makes sense even if the games are not entirely compatible. They generally still share more than similarities than differences.

Some sort of "Old School Gaming" to represent retro-clones of Runequest, HERO, GURPS, TFT, Tunnels and Trolls, Aftermath, Daredevils, Bushido, Twilight 2000, Traveller, Merc, Behind Enemy Lines, Stalking the Night Fantastic, Fringeworthy, Top Secret, Top Secret SI, James Bond, Powers and Perils, Rolemaster, Warhammer etc etc is pretty much meaningless.

There is simply no solid tie between these games beyond all having been developed in the period from the late 1970s to mid 1980s. What attracts a player to a HERO retroclone, may not appeal at all to a player of a James Bond or Traveller retroclone.

Ten years ago the idea was to get people playing a variety of older style games instead of just talking about them. Now that is happening more and more, little by little. Meaningless? Probably to most. I myself enjoy the variety and enjoy running a variety of games. With increased popularity in role-playing I now, for the first time in over two decades, get to play in a WFRP 1st edition game. And it is a lot of fun, bringing together gamers and those new to gaming.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1097552As stated by EOTB:



This is totally true, so, from a marketing point of view, do we need a "movement" label, acronym, whatchamacallit?

If so, may I suggest Old School Gaming?

Logos by me, released under public domain.[ATTACH=CONFIG]3651[/ATTACH]

What do you think?

I like that logo a lot, actually.

Then again, I am a Pepsi fanboy so I may be biased....

I do agree we should see more attention focused on old-school gaming beyond TSR-era D&D (although TSR D&D was awesome and still is) but the one place where I disagree with the thread is that I think the cut off point for old-school gaming is not 1990 but 2000.

D&D 3E and the OGL (along with the resulting d20 boom and subsequent bust) had a huge effect on the RPG industry, I'd say it's probably the second biggest event in the history of RPG's after OD&D being released in 1974.

While the roots of "New School" Gaming as it is commonly understood began firmly in the 1990's, you still had a lot of "Old School" games such as AD&D 2E and the first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade.

I think the only reason why Vampire is considered the beginning of the "New School" has nothing to do with the game itself but rather how it was marketed and how the hobby reacted to it.

Vampire 1E was firmly an old-school game but with the veneer of a modern-day setting which was still considered a novelty in 1991 since most RPG's were either fantasy or futuristic science fiction. There were exceptions, of course.

But most of the successful modern-day RPG settings were superhero-based or licensed tie-ins until Vampire came along.

The problem was that Vampire 1E marketed itself as a "game of personal horror" and a "storytelling game" but that was really just a marketing gimmick that early White Wolf used to sell the game to demographics outside of the traditional RPG hobby.

And it worked. However, the success was a double-edged sword.

After Mark Rein-Hagen, Andrew Greenburg, and the Wieck brothers were ousted from White Wolf, you had a new crop of writers who became dominant at White Wolf who bought into VTM 1E's marketing a little too well and tried to force the marketing term of "personal horror" into an actual defined genre and play style since fun was not pretentious enough for their tastes.

Justin Achilli and Phil Brucato are among the worst offenders in this era for pushing the "Personal Horror Uber Alles" mentality, until the fuckers at Onyx Path saw what Achilli had done to the franchise and said "Hold my vegan soy latte..."

Needless to say, the push for personal horror failed every single time from Revised to Requiem to V5. Each backlash was worse than the last. And they still have yet to learn

A second camp emerged from this marketing, and that was Ron Edwards and The Forge, and when he crashed and burned, the Story Games movement emerged from the ashes.

While the later White Wolf games are most definitely "New School" and the Story Game movement is opposed to old-school gaming in every way imaginable, the first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade is very much an old-school RPG in the vein of Call of Cthulhu but is disregarded by old-school gamers because the success of its initial marketing gimmicks worked a little too well.

Quote from: finarvyn;1097642Also, D&D could be "cloned" because of the open SRD that Wizards of the Coast released. Other games couldn't really be cloned unless they also have an SRD. (I'm pretty sure that Mongoose had one for Traveller and there may be a few others.)

'Castles & Crusades' was 'D&D' cloned without using the SRD or OGL.
'Legends of the Ancient World' was 'The Fantasy Trip' cloned without using any sort of license or permission from Steve Jackson Games (or actually the previous owner).
The issue is that game systems themselves cannot be copyrighted, only patented.

Quote from: bat;1098122Ten years ago the idea was to get people playing a variety of older style games instead of just talking about them. Now that is happening more and more, little by little. Meaningless? Probably to most. I myself enjoy the variety and enjoy running a variety of games. With increased popularity in role-playing I now, for the first time in over two decades, get to play in a WFRP 1st edition game. And it is a lot of fun, bringing together gamers and those new to gaming.

That seems a little different issue than lumping all games older than X into a group. Not all old games are worth revisiting, some are just as viable today as they were 30 years ago, but for reasons they just fell off the field.

I'm not sure how slapping a Grey Haired Gamers Approved logo is going to do anything for them. If you are a fan of an old game get out there and promote it.

Quote from: finarvyn;1097642Much of the OSR gained momentum, as I recall it, because WotC wouldn't release earlier versions of D&D. Now they have put out PDFs of most of the older versions and so the need to clone them has diminished a lot. Also, D&D could be "cloned" because of the open SRD that Wizards of the Coast released. Other games couldn't really be cloned unless they also have an SRD. (I'm pretty sure that Mongoose had one for Traveller and there may be a few others.)

Mongoose Traveller 1e was OGL and did have a SRD. It doesn't really fit with the pattern of D&D OSR retroclones because MgT 1e was already very backwards compatible with Classic Traveller (and most versions of Traveller for that matter).

Quote from: DocJones;1098128'Castles & Crusades' was 'D&D' cloned without using the SRD or OGL.
'Legends of the Ancient World' was 'The Fantasy Trip' cloned without using any sort of license or permission from Steve Jackson Games (or actually the previous owner).
The issue is that game systems themselves cannot be copyrighted, only patented.

SJG didn't own the copyright for TFT, Microgames did, and the owner was MIA. SJG was too big to risk reviving TFT without proper rights so created GURPS. The TFT clones were small and didn't have much to lose at the small risk that the copyright holder who apparently had left the gaming scene would do anything about it.

You can copyright a game, but there is no protection for the system. As long as everything is fresh and in your own words it is not that hard to make a copy of a game. Armor Class might be an issue, but calling it Armor Rank (or some such) would be pretty safe even if it works almost exactly the same. Well used concepts like hit points are fair game.

The larger issue is deep pockets and lawyers, you don't have to be right if you have enough money to crush your opponent with the threat of legal action. TSR and Palladium were notorious for going after new RPGs early on.

That trick goes back well before RPGs, S&W used a dubious patent to prevent other gun makers from using a bored through cylinder giving them a big technical advantage for nearly 20 years. The Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, used the Selden Patent on the automobile to skim off profits and control auto manufacturing which stifled automobile development during the first decade of the 20th Century. They were successful until Henry Ford was denied a license and then refused to pay royalties. The court battle went on for 8 years with Ford finally wining in 1911. Ultimately the Selden patent was bogus, it was for a very outdated style of automobile that couldn't even be made to work as it was described in the patent. The ALAM still made a lot of money from it before Ford ruined their good times.

Quote from: DocJones;1098128'Castles & Crusades' was 'D&D' cloned without using the SRD or OGL.

Not a rebuttal of your main point, but Castles & Crusades used the OGL. (And, IMO, it was more of a "pseudo-clone" than a true clone. There are/were some significant differences, especially where C&C leveraged their siege engine approach to things. After I abandoned 3E I tried C&C for a campaign. I found myself house-ruling it to make it more like TSR D&D. Eventually I realized I was being ridiculous, and that since what I really wanted was TSR D&D, I should just play TSR D&D...)

Quote from: DocJones;1098128'Castles & Crusades' was 'D&D' cloned without using the SRD or OGL.
'Legends of the Ancient World' was 'The Fantasy Trip' cloned without using any sort of license or permission from Steve Jackson Games (or actually the previous owner).
The issue is that game systems themselves cannot be copyrighted, only patented.

Firstly, C&C absolutely used the OGL, and secondly, it's not particularly like old school D&D (and while I'm at it, not very good).

OTOH, you have something like Spears of the Dawn which is more or less African Old School D&D but doesn't use the OGL. OTOH, it doesn't use any names of D&D spells or such, it's completely from scratch but with the same mechanics.

That's really that advantage of the OGL, you can re-use a lot of the text, some of which is essentially unchanged from AD&D 1e.

It's true about Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine. His games don't use the OGL.

I agree with people who think it is not a good idea.

OSR or retro clone was meant in D&D context only. D&D got over-complicated.

About other RPGs -- the term "old school" is so over-used. It's like every game is old school when it is not trying to do something "smart". If it wants to remain simple and traditional, it is automatically "old school". Why can't we have new RPGs that are simple and traditional? "Old school" is a marketing label that people use to improve the sale. Just make better games that sell themselves. If it is old school, maybe it's already been done -- maybe not doing it any more? If it is a new game that deserves it's existence then be proud of it and call it NEW and BETTER! Not label itself as shadow of the former glory.