Quote from: SineNomine;643994This is a profoundly confused idea.

By this logic, once a game has been created for a genre, no future game should ever be created for it. If you can dilute the individuality of Traveller with old-school mechanics, then you can dilute it with FATE, or with X World, or with Rolemaster. GURPS is an even worse offender, as it has multiple offerings in multiple genres, relentlessly blandifying them all. People must stop making games, because people might like them better than the firstcomers!

How does this position not amount to a categorical rejection of any semi-hard sci-fi RPG published in the past 30 years?

Confused? Because I like some variety in my gameplay and do not want everything to play like vintage D&D?

Those different versions of Traveller you mentioned used the same setting background, but were each different systems. You are advocating the use of the same system in all genres, not just some settings.

You are also arguing from a lack of information. GURPS was originally designed as a Generic Universal Role-Playing System, it is in its very nature to go and be used in different genres. Vintage D&D was designed for fantasy and trying to shoehorn it onto genres outside of fantasy just creates vintage D&D in that genre as it poorly emulates gameplay outside of fantasy.

Quote from: jeff37923;643997Confused? Because I like some variety in my gameplay and do not want everything to play like vintage D&D?

Because you are talking as if the simple existence of other options somehow threatens your ability to play your preferred game.

QuoteVintage D&D was designed for fantasy and trying to shoehorn it onto genres outside of fantasy just creates vintage D&D in that genre as it poorly emulates gameplay outside of fantasy.

I disagree entirely.

But that's not really the point here- the point is that you give no credence to the idea that these other OSR games might be bringing something other than the system mechanics to what they offer. Because they use old-school mechanics for their system they must not do anything that B/X D&D didn't do and must not offer any help to the GM in ways the earlier game couldn't offer. This is not the experience of the people playing them, however terribly mistaken you may think they are.

Quote from: SineNomine;644005Because you are talking as if the simple existence of other options somehow threatens your ability to play your preferred game.

Threatens my ability to play my preferred game? No.

Think that forcing vintage D&D on to every genre just because it is not there is pretty fucking stupid and myopic. Yes. There were a lot of Old School games and some were absolutely great, saying that OSR only means vintage D&D and therefore everything is better with it attached, is stupid. That is like saying that every food is better with chocolate sprinkles on it, regardless of whether or not you are talking about steak and lobster.

Quote from: SineNomine;644005I disagree entirely.

Of course you do, you slapped vintage D&D on Classic Traveller and got Stars Without Number and "fixed" it.

Quote from: SineNomine;644005But that's not really the point here- the point is that you give no credence to the idea that these other OSR games might be bringing something other than the system mechanics to what they offer. Because they use old-school mechanics for their system they must not do anything that B/X D&D didn't do and must not offer any help to the GM in ways the earlier game couldn't offer. This is not the experience of the people playing them, however terribly mistaken you may think they are.

Yup, I think that Classic Traveller works quite well all by itself. I see no reason to force it to be raped by vintage D&D in the hope that it will crossbreed a mule that is easier on the less imaginative amoungst us for their benefit.

Why? Because rules mechanics dictate the gameplay that follows. Change the mechanics and you change the gameplay. Make the mechanics vintage D&D and it is no longer the original game, it is the original game filtered through vintage D&D.

Quote from: jeff37923;643929Except that Classic Traveller is OSR. My problem is conflating OSR to mean vintage D&D as a default.

I just read it as Old School Religion at this stage.

Quote from: The Traveller;644009I just read it as Old School Religion at this stage.

I'm starting to think the same.

Quote from: The Traveller;644009I just read it as Old School Religion at this stage.

I agree there are those who fetishise the Old in RPGs (hells, I myself refuse to acknowledge Warhammer 2e, despite the fact that the rules are probably better), and it's really the same as fetishising the New in RPGs. But I really think that there's been a storm in a bathtub here - after all, it's just the talk about people trying to fit their liked settings into favourite mechanic, and it went nuclear pretty fast.

If you would say Jeff that there are mechanics that are better at conveying certain themes/genres better than others, I certainly agree with you. And I do agree with you that in a way, indeed the "OSR conversion" is a wee bit...needless? After all, right tools for the right job and whatsonot. But at the same time, well, if someone really feels most comfortable in the old D&D mechanics - let them. Though I guess I can understand a bit of a...distaste, if I may call it? At treating the original D&D mechanics as RPG bacon. I'm just not really agreeing with going full ballistic here.

Still, all in all, I'll be giving the Spaghetti Western rules a twirl, if only to see if they could be used for an easy one - shot, little preparation Western game.

Gamma World and D&D share an essentially same system, but I doubt anyone who is a fan of Gamma World would declare it flavorless.

Same for CoC vs. RQ.

And I have run fantasy with Traveller and it rocked and certainly didn't feel like a regular CT campaign.

Quote from: SineNomine;643982But every GM has a certain budget of time and creative energy. We don't have an indefinite amount of leisure and enthusiasm to build our worlds out of bare rocks and superglue.

Especially when we look at 2013 vs. 1974.

Quote from: Ronin;643962Color me interested. Would love to hear more

I will start a separate thread called OSR Spy Game this week. I have done a first draft and my design goal is OD&D + SpyCraft + Top Secret where I hope to get a cool spy game, but deadly spy game.

My goal is for combat to be dangerous. Even an idiot guard is a major danger when doing a spray and pray with an Uzi. Thus, the PCs want to be more like Assassins than Fighters, sneaking about and ambushing their foes and avoiding toe-to-toe fights whenever possible. The goal of each session is to  Accomplish the Mission and that is rarely done by going room to room dungeon style.

Quote from: baran_i_kanu;643992I am interested as well.

Woot!

My whole interest in doing a Spy Game is because I so badly wanted to love SpyCraft, but the damn game system kept getting in the way of my fun. In some ways, my game is the Castles & Crusades version of SpyCraft.

Quote from: Spinachcat;644019Gamma World and D&D share an essentially same system, but I doubt anyone who is a fan of Gamma World would declare it flavorless.

Same for CoC vs. RQ.

Yet in each of these games, they were built from the ground up around those systems. They were not something unique and genre specific that "got an OSR treatment".

Quote from: Spinachcat;644019And I have run fantasy with Traveller and it rocked and certainly didn't feel like a regular CT campaign.

Gee, maybe it didn't feel like a regular Classic Traveller campaign because you used a science fiction RPG to run a fantasy game?

OD&D is the new GURPS.

Quote from: jeff37923;644021Gee, maybe it didn't feel like a regular Classic Traveller campaign because you used a science fiction RPG to run a fantasy game?

There is nothing science fiction in Traveller's chargen, half of its skills and most of its tech. There is nothing science fiction in its task resolution or its combat system or its damage system.  Hell, I've used the space combat system for fantasy naval combat and it worked just fine.

CT has great core mechanics and so does OD&D. Thus, its no surprise to me that people would enjoy tinkering with using those mechanics for other genres.

Here's a summary of the last couple of pages for busy people:

- SWN does the sandboxy semi-hard sci-fi thing with a different flavour than Traveller. No one is putting a gun to Traveller fans' heads forcing them to play SWN, no one is campaigning for banning Traveller. They're just offering a taste that's similar to but somewhat different from what's already out there. They say "We like it this way better, feel free to have a try." They are not trying to deny Traveller's right to exist.

- Jeff68463 denies SWN's right to exist and would ban it if he could because it blemishes the purity of the Aryan sandboxy semi-hard sci-fi thing of which there can be only one. Jeff is a fucking cunt.


There, people, saved you a tl;dr. Did it as first post of the page, too, so you don't have to waste time browsing back.

Quote from: Premier;644046Here's a summary of the last couple of pages for busy people:

- SWN does the sandboxy semi-hard sci-fi thing with a different flavour than Traveller. No one is putting a gun to Traveller fans' heads forcing them to play SWN, no one is campaigning for banning Traveller. They're just offering a taste that's similar to but somewhat different from what's already out there. They say "We like it this way better, feel free to have a try." They are not trying to deny Traveller's right to exist.

- Jeff68463 denies SWN's right to exist and would ban it if he could because it blemishes the purity of the Aryan sandboxy semi-hard sci-fi thing of which there can be only one. Jeff is a fucking cunt.


There, people, saved you a tl;dr. Did it as first post of the page, too, so you don't have to waste time browsing back.

Hell yeah, spot on. Only thing wrong with this post is that it wasn't posted two pages earlier. :rotfl:

...SWN fan myself. It's fantastic for sandboxes. Really fantastic.

I like Other Dust as well allthough it hasn't blown me away in the same way - yet that is. However it does "osr post-apoc" in a way sufficiently different from Gamma World & Mutant Future to very definitely have a place of its own (much less gonzo imo).

Quote from: jeff37923;643986Except that making every past game genre over in terms of vintage D&D robs them of the individuality which makes them unique because it reduces much of the gameplay to the same and that can easily become bland and tasteless.

Jeff... I think you're a great poster, but that's crazy talk, buddy.

How do you feel the existence of SWN interferes with Traveller?

Do you think people would stop playing Traveller because SWN is available?

Because I don't think the SWN being around is bad for Traveller, any more than, say Runequest being around was bad for D&D.

I mean, preferring Traveller to SWN I can understand and even sympathize -- I love SWN but last time I ran SF I went with Traveller because it felt grittier, I'd never run it before, and having just wrapped up a 2-year-long Castles & Crusades game, being distinct from D&D was a plus. But taking exception at the very existence of a perfectly normal game strikes me as odd.

Still, I enjoyed reading Kevin's defense of the game. If anything, the back-and-forth made me want to order the hardcopy and run something with it. Maybe Eclipse Phase using the Polychrome and Transhuman Tech supplements?

I think people are being a little unfair to Jeff. I can see some of the annoyance at the OSR being linked pretty exclusively to d&d, when plenty of other games share a similar ideology.