Quote from: Mercurius on October 09, 2020, 09:04:38 PM
Even accounting for the likelihood that your statement was intentionally exaggerated, this is not really true. D&D is played in a wide range of ways, and it isn't either/or (e.g. either old school or not). Many of us don't care about such labels and just play the game in a way that we find pleasing.

I think that's right. There's no OSR purity test, and eg popular new school GM-advice Youtuber Matt Colville advises a lot of old school techniques to newbie DMs. 5e D&D itself is all over the place and includes big chunks of old school design in with new school stuff - it very much lacks the kind of strong authorial voice seen in 4e D&D ("D&D is about killing horrible monsters, not traipsing through fairy rings interacting with the little people" "Long treks through ruined dwarven fortresses aren't fun. Skip to the fun") - it's all very 'you do you', and depending which bits you take from the 5e DMG it can be run in a very old school way.

Just my 0.02Cr here.....

Traveller has a retroclone if you squint and look at Cepheus Engine. Traveller didn't need an OSR retroclone because Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition went back to what was working for the game system, Classic Traveller, and made a few updates. Traveller needs Cepheus Engine now in the same way that D&D needed Pathfinder when WotC pulled the plug on D&D 3.5 and went D&D 4E, Cepheus Engine allows Traveller players to DiY without stepping on IP issues.

Quote from: Mercurius on October 09, 2020, 09:04:38 PM

Quote from: Premier on October 09, 2020, 05:17:58 PM
What you fail to see is that the D&D played inside the OSR and the D&D played outside the OSR are two completely different things.

Even accounting for the likelihood that your statement was intentionally exaggerated, this is not really true. D&D is played in a wide range of ways, and it isn't either/or (e.g. either old school or not). Many of us don't care about such labels and just play the game in a way that we find pleasing.

It's true that D&D can be played in various ways, and you're free not to care about labels, but I cannot agree with your assertion that "mainstream" or "modern" D&D and the OSR are not distinctly different. There's a reason why a lot of OSR players don't play WotC editions and why most mainstream players don't play AD&D. Sure, there are always outliers and shades of grey, but denying the existence of strong trends of differing preferences is either naive or dishonest. I mean, the OSR exists. That in itself is proof enough that there's a demand for something that generally fits within the "D&D bin", but is nevertheless markedly different from WotC fare.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 09, 2020, 11:26:35 PMFirst, you're couching your entire diatribe under a series of claims that are themselves debatable—inserting your opinions about WotC era editions of D&D (which have better task resolution than old D&D*) and making accusations about the "RPG Mainstream" being hostile to "players who preferred older editions of the game", which pretty much describes my ENITRE experience of the so-called D&D edition wars going back decades before 3e was even released (and usually coming from people OBSESSED with Basic D&D against anyone who played later editions, including AD&D, which have always being "shit" despite being more fleshed out than Basic D&D). And implying that old school players were somehow the victims of some type of persecution that necessitated a "direct pushback against that hostility", making it a loaded statement, which paints anyone on the other side of this discussion as some kind of monster in favor of persecuting people from playing the games they like.

This whole exchange started about whether or not the OSR is "pointless". But you're sniping at my tone of voice and trying to change the topic into "but edition wars also existed back then!", which are not topics I'm interested in discussing, at least not in this thread. So you know what? YOU WIN. You got me, I'm guilty as charged of using unusally strong and colourful language. You can let me be now, especially because you don't seem to be interested in discussing the actual topic at hand, namely whether or not the OSR has a raison d'être, which Hedgehobbit claimed it does not.

QuoteThen you claim that by Hedgehobbit merely saying that the OSR is pointless (which it kinda is, TBH. I mean, old D&D is SHIT ) that he's somehow enabling this or stoping fans of old editions or old-school playstyles from having an "easy" way to play games, which are technically still available.

Please go back to that post and read it again, more carefully this time. I said that IF Hedgehobbit honestly believes what he said, THEN that's what he must necessarily mean by it. For all we know, it's quite possible he did NOT, in fact, mean what he said, he might have been just speaking out of well-intentioned ignorance; in which case obviously don't fuck him. That's what the "if... then" sentence construction means, you know.

And also please check the timing of when WotC started making old editions avaialable either as pdfs or collectors' prints. They started doing it (IIRC several years) after the OSR took off and proved that there was a not insignificant demand for the old stuff. Had there been no OSR, those old editions would not have seen the light of day again.

Quote from: Premier on October 10, 2020, 07:49:59 AM
And also please check the timing of when WotC started making old editions avaialable either as pdfs or collectors' prints. They started doing it (IIRC several years) after the OSR took off and proved that there was a not insignificant demand for the old stuff. Had there been no OSR, those old editions would not have seen the light of day again.

I think the OSR basically Achieved Final Victory around 2012 when WoTC republished AD&D etc, put all the old stuff up on drivethrurpg, and took a lot from pre-3e for their D&D Next. You could argue this means the post-2012 OSR has much less reason for existence now than it did in the 2008-12 golden age. But all the cool stuff now would not exist except for what was done back then. We stand today on the shoulders of giants - Finch, Marshall, Proctor, Gonnerman et al.

Quote from: S'monBut all the cool stuff now would not exist except for what was done back then. We stand today on the shoulders of giants - Finch, Marshall, Proctor, Gonnerman et al.

QFT, brother.

Quote from: Premier on October 10, 2020, 07:49:59 AM
Please go back to that post and read it again, more carefully this time. I said that IF Hedgehobbit honestly believes what he said, THEN that's what he must necessarily mean by it.

And this is where you miss the point of my post, which is that you're reducing everything to just two possibilities, which is that anyone who considers the OSR "pointless" MUST by default "necessarily" be an evil oppressor that's totally OK with the persecution of the poor inoffensive old school gamers, who have apparently never slung shit at other games or editions of D&D, or be a complete ignorant fucktard, as opposed to having their own objections to the OSR (maybe they just don't like old D&D and see it as silly, or don't like the constant purity testing, etc.).

Quote from: Premier on October 10, 2020, 07:49:59 AMAnd also please check the timing of when WotC started making old editions avaialable either as pdfs or collectors' prints. They started doing it (IIRC several years) after the OSR took off and proved that there was a not insignificant demand for the old stuff. Had there been no OSR, those old editions would not have seen the light of day again.

Yeah, Ima give you that one, since I knew that that was probably the case before I even posted that, but didn't bother to check out of laziness, plus I was about to go to sleep and didn't think it mattered much to the greater point regardless.

Quote from: S'mon on October 10, 2020, 08:54:08 AMI think the OSR basically Achieved Final Victory around 2012 when WoTC republished AD&D etc, put all the old stuff up on drivethrurpg, and took a lot from pre-3e for their D&D Next. You could argue this means the post-2012 OSR has much less reason for existence now than it did in the 2008-12 golden age. But all the cool stuff now would not exist except for what was done back then. We stand today on the shoulders of giants - Finch, Marshall, Proctor, Gonnerman et al.

That's certainly a way of looking at it, but it depends on one particular interpretation of what the OSR was/is. If you assume that OSR = retroclones, then yes, what you say is true.

Another perspective, however, is that the OSR changed at the time, but it's still the OSR - only a different generation, or edition if you will. After the Victory of the Retroclones, the OSR turned towards experimenting with individual customisations of the fundamental language of D&D (the "this OSR system is how I play D&D" stage), and then towards using that fundamental language to do new things D&D originally did not explore ("D&D but in space / horror / this weird thing / other kind of horror / whatever"). To me, these newer branches of the OSR are still OSR just as every edition of D&D is D&D whether or not I like it. In this sense, the OSR might have won the battle it originally set out to fight, but then just found itself a new, worthy cause and plodded on.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 10, 2020, 01:01:41 PMAnd this is where you miss the point of my post, which is that you're reducing everything to just two possibilities, which is that anyone who considers the OSR "pointless" MUST by default "necessarily" be an evil oppressor that's totally OK with the persecution of the poor inoffensive old school gamers, who have apparently never slung shit at other games or editions of D&D, or be a complete ignorant fucktard, as opposed to having their own objections to the OSR (maybe they just don't like old D&D and see it as silly, or don't like the constant purity testing, etc.).

Well, let's apply that argument to the case at hand. Hedgehobbit came into this thread, dropped "OSR isn't really needed nor is it helping" without any sort of explanation and never looked back.

You assert that I'm wrong and hostile and that Hedgehobbit "has his own objections to the OSR". Well, he didn't explain his objections, so why should we assume they're reasonable, fair and thought-out?

Then you go on to give some potential examples of valid objections, and start with "maybe they just don't like old D&D and see it as silly". Do you see the problem? Claiming that something "isn't really needed" just because you personally don't like it and think is silly is exactly the sort of unreasoning antagonism that I was talking about. Your very example of why you think HH might have said what he did supports my own assertion. In contrast, I think 3-4E are shit, but I never claimed they have no reason to exist or that people who like playing them shouldn't be able to do so.

Quote from: Premier on October 10, 2020, 07:29:23 PM


That's certainly a way of looking at it, but it depends on one particular interpretation of what the OSR was/is. If you assume that OSR = retroclones, then yes, what you say is true.

Another perspective, however, is that the OSR changed at the time, but it's still the OSR - only a different generation, or edition if you will. After the Victory of the Retroclones, the OSR turned towards experimenting with individual customisations of the fundamental language of D&D (the "this OSR system is how I play D&D" stage), and then towards using that fundamental language to do new things D&D originally did not explore ("D&D but in space / horror / this weird thing / other kind of horror / whatever"). To me, these newer branches of the OSR are still OSR just as every edition of D&D is D&D whether or not I like it. In this sense, the OSR might have won the battle it originally set out to fight, but then just found itself a new, worthy cause and plodded on.

I'd put that in the 'new cool stuff' category I mentioned.

Quote from: Premier on October 10, 2020, 07:49:59 AM

Quote from: Mercurius on October 09, 2020, 09:04:38 PM

Quote from: Premier on October 09, 2020, 05:17:58 PM
What you fail to see is that the D&D played inside the OSR and the D&D played outside the OSR are two completely different things.

Even accounting for the likelihood that your statement was intentionally exaggerated, this is not really true. D&D is played in a wide range of ways, and it isn't either/or (e.g. either old school or not). Many of us don't care about such labels and just play the game in a way that we find pleasing.

It's true that D&D can be played in various ways, and you're free not to care about labels, but I cannot agree with your assertion that "mainstream" or "modern" D&D and the OSR are not distinctly different. There's a reason why a lot of OSR players don't play WotC editions and why most mainstream players don't play AD&D. Sure, there are always outliers and shades of grey, but denying the existence of strong trends of differing preferences is either naive or dishonest. I mean, the OSR exists. That in itself is proof enough that there's a demand for something that generally fits within the "D&D bin", but is nevertheless markedly different from WotC fare.

It may be nitpicky, but there is a difference between your original "completely different" and your amended "distinctly different." I can agree with the latter, with the caveat that there's a lot of variability as to what constitutes "distinctly different."

I imagine that every OSR player has their own reasons for eschewing WotC D&D, but I imagine that a good portion of it isn't about the rules, but less tangible elements: presentation, style, vibe, culture, etc.

Tying in another point, when you say that the OSR attained victory in 2012, I think you can connect that to the publication of 5E in 2014, which while ultimately being a modern edition of D&D--closer to a streamlined version of 3E than one of the TSR editions--it did seem like the designers at WotC were cognizant of the desires of the OSR crowd, and folded in some of the old school elements more explicitly than in the past two editions. It tried to spread the umbrella as wide as possible (to what degree it was successful is a matter of opinion).

"Old school" gaming has been implicit in every edition of D&D, even 3E and 4E. It is just that by 4E, it was more hidden behind a very different system approach.

I would suggest that at the heart of the OSR isn't as much a hugely different approach to D&D than WotC, but a "peeling away" of some of the more modern ideas and approaches and going back to the roots of what D&D is, or started as. Meaning, WotC D&D is old school + some new stuff. The OSR is basically a statement of, "We don't need to the new stuff!"

This is why I see 1983, with the publication of Dragonlance and is meta-campaign, as the Day of Infamy or the Fall to the OSR folks. It represented a major departure from Gygaxian fantasy (thus 1974-82 could be considered the "Golden Age" of D&D). But Gygaxian and/or old school fantasy has never died, it has just been added to. We can see this in layers: Dragonlance and the meta-story in 1983, the many settings of 2E starting in the late 80s, and the modernization of the rules with 3E in 2000, not to mention the "video-gamification" of 4E in 2008.

So if you're going to talk about the victory of the OSR, I think it was felt in the "return to roots"--at least in a partial sense--that 5E represented, with its greater simplicity than the previous two editions, its re-emphasis on theater-of-mind, its three pillared approach, etc. Am I saying that 5E is part of the OSR? No. But I think it is more compatible with, more friendly to, old school sensibilities.

It's me that believes 5e represents the Victory (& thus partial irrelevance) of the OSR. I was in the pub tonight with some fellow grognards, lamenting a couple new-schoolers we know who take their D&D cues from Critical Role. But we all, Grognards and Critters, play primarily 5e D&D.

OK 5e is never going to pass any OSR purity test. But it fixes a ton of stuff from 3e and 4e that took D&D away from what we like about the game.

Quote from: S'mon on October 11, 2020, 04:22:47 PM
It's me that believes 5e represents the Victory (& thus partial irrelevance) of the OSR. I was in the pub tonight with some fellow grognards, lamenting a couple new-schoolers we know who take their D&D cues from Critical Role. But we all, Grognards and Critters, play primarily 5e D&D.

OK 5e is never going to pass any OSR purity test. But it fixes a ton of stuff from 3e and 4e that took D&D away from what we like about the game.

  That sounds less like victory and more like being co-opted, at least to me--but I'm not a big fan of either WotC or the OSR.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 11, 2020, 04:50:19 PM
  That sounds less like victory and more like being co-opted, at least to me--but I'm not a big fan of either WotC or the OSR.

A plague on all our houses, eh? 

Try playing some RPGs - you might like them! 

Quote from: S'mon on October 11, 2020, 04:22:47 PM
It's me that believes 5e represents the Victory (& thus partial irrelevance) of the OSR. I was in the pub tonight with some fellow grognards, lamenting a couple new-schoolers we know who take their D&D cues from Critical Role. But we all, Grognards and Critters, play primarily 5e D&D.

OK 5e is never going to pass any OSR purity test. But it fixes a ton of stuff from 3e and 4e that took D&D away from what we like about the game.

My apologies, to you and Premier.

By the way, what is a "Critter?" A young 'un? I consider myself a Quasi-Grognard...I see it as some combination of younger grognard--started playing in the 80s or early 90s (I started in the early 80s)--and open to new editions. A true Grognard, in my opinion, started playing in the 70s, preferably with OD&D, and/or is anti-WotC.

I would say that 5E does a pretty good job combining the best of TSR and WotC D&D. In some ways it is what 3E "should" have been (ala C&C), streamlining and updating the hodge-podge of TSR D&D, but adding a few new bells and whistles that take the game a step forward.

On a side note, I made the comment on ENW that I found Critical Role irritating and got quite a back-lash.

Quote from: Mercurius on October 05, 2020, 01:29:29 PM

Quote from: zircher on October 05, 2020, 12:19:30 PM
Where would you put Talislanta on that list?  It was developed and deployed in multiple systems in 2018-2019.

I don't really see it as OSR or even "OSR adjacent." Sure, it harkens back to sword & sorcery and the science fantasy of the 70s, but not only is it distinctly different from D&D, it has its own history going back to the 80s. Also, it isn't based upon the D&D system in any way, except for the fact it uses d20s.

  Dungeons & Dragons, from the viewpoint of TARGA, the organization that kicked off the OSR,  was just one facet of old style gaming. The idea back then was to get people playing older style games instead of just talking about them. Is Talislanta in? You bet! And Star Frontiers, Gamma World and games like Wizards' World. D&D was never meant to be the only focus. How do I know? I was a member of TARGA and participated on the conference calls, created the YahooGroup, and made blank fliers for people to download,  fill out and post to announce their games. Your list is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Quote from: Mercurius on October 11, 2020, 05:33:49 PM
By the way, what is a "Critter?" A young 'un?

A fan of Critical Role. Don't have to be young - of the two we were discussing, one is in his twenties and the other in her late thirties AFAIK. But Critical Role shapes their view of what D&D is and should be.

We think it's not even Matt Mercer's GMing, more the actor-players and how they see their role in the game, the group, the game world and the 'story'.