What's the single best thing the OSR did? I don't mean "what's the best book", I mean what system detail, mechanic, sub-mechanic, setting concept or other idea came out of the OSR that you think was the coolest or most impressive product of the movement?

Quote from: RPGPundit;861158What's the single best thing the OSR did? I don't mean "what's the best book", I mean what system detail, mechanic, sub-mechanic, setting concept or other idea came out of the OSR that you think was the coolest or most impressive product of the movement?

Personally, it (re)taught me to be a dungeon master, and not a dungeon slave.  To not confabulate balance with equity.

It gave voice to a group of gamers that had been neglected by newer games and design goals. It brought back the DIY ethic. It has grown far beyond what most had imagined it could have been when we were inundated by retro clones.

The single greatest thing about the OSR: Its very idea, to remind us that old isn't necessarily bad and there were still enough gamers out that either wanted to return to the game's roots or remain there and then see where the community could take it, not some money-conscious managers.

Quote from: Tyndale;861159Personally, it (re)taught me to be a dungeon master, and not a dungeon slave.  To not confabulate balance with equity.

This times a million.

It reminded me that having niggling, stupid rules and mechanics for every single situation is a prison.

Taught me that house-ruling is ok. I used to work under the assumption for years that you had to play systems as-written, and who did I think I was if I tried to alter those rules?

As I started doing more OSR stuff, I quickly realised that house-ruling and the like can often be an important requirement to make your game work "just so". As long as you're up front with the players in what you're doing, its really not a problem at all.

When 3.5e appeared, I was fed up with D&D and about to quit RPGs altogether (maybe that would have been a good thing by the way, so I could have found more lucrative ways of spending my time...). Then, I discovered Castles & Crusades that renewed my interest in the game. Then, I still wanted to houserule C&C, so in the end I wrote FH&W. So, the good thing for me with the OSR, is that we can play what we want, and design it ourselves by the way; we are no more to abide by the whims and products of the great publishers. Well, I could say that OSR brought me "gaming freedom"...

Took advantage of the OGL and the new age of publishing to produce a slew of throwback games to remind us what D&D (mainly) used to be. By providing shiny new choices with an older feel, the OSR movement made it much easier to ignore the great Dragon in the room, and perhaps contributed a little bit to WotC going back to the main game's roots.

Quote from: RPGPundit;861158What's the single best thing the OSR did? I don't mean "what's the best book", I mean what system detail, mechanic, sub-mechanic, setting concept or other idea came out of the OSR that you think was the coolest or most impressive product of the movement?

OSRIC prerelease, Castles & Crusades, Old School Primer by Matt Finch

Why Castles & Crusades? Because it ignited an interest in a  resurrection of classic D&D supported by a complete range of products like rulebooks, adventures, settings, supplements, and aides.

Why OSRIC? Because it defined the most important boundary in resurrecting classic D&D with the Open Game License. Providing a clear example how the d20 SRD and the OGL can be used to promote, publish, and play classic D&D.

Why the Old School Primer? People think that is focused on recreating some mythical style of play from the earliest days. I view it as a how-to manual of how a referee can use the lite mechanics of classic D&D to provide a campaign as rich as anything done with more detailed systems like GURPs, or Runequest.

It conclusively showed that in the internet age D&D can survive in the wild.  It's a feral beast now and can never again be tamed or canned or forced into someone else's vision.

I do thing the utter catastrophe of fourth edition gave a great boost to the OSR but I don't think fifth edition can bury it.

For me, it was the rediscovery of random generation of stuff. Namely, stuff like Vorheim and Yoon Suin.

Quote from: RPGPundit;861158What's the single best thing the OSR did?

It lowered the barrier to entry for self-publication.

Pissed off the establishment.  The system hacks, the math-must-be-perfect types, the people who'd never played AD&D except a few sessions of 2e and then spent two decades sneering at it only to jump out and proclaim 4e was the BEST EVAR - it made people like that apoplectic, and if you don't believe me there's plenty of evidence at tgd and sa's "grognards.txt".  The screeching and shrieking these people did when just a tiny iota of old-school was introduced in 5e is proof positive.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;861230It lowered the barrier to entry for self-publication.

What barrier was there in the first place?  I was self-publishing for a decade prior to the faux-SR "happened".

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;861230It lowered the barrier to entry for self-publication.

I agree with the Dungeon Delver the barrier was already lowered well before the OSR debuted. What the OSR added was to serve as an accessible practical example of how to self-publish for the RPG hobby.

Two reasons

1) because it focused on the most popular RPG of all-time it naturally had a wider audience than any other type of independent publishing effort.

2) It had no commercial competition that had the lion's share of attention.

The two combined meant when somebody googled classic D&D, and publishing stuff, a dozen independent people would come up each with their own take on how they got stuff out. Most of them just one or a handful of folks doing it in their spare time. So was very easy for a determined individual to get useful advice for their projects from people that actually succeeded at something similar.

Quote from: Tyndale;861159Personally, it (re)taught me to be a dungeon master, and not a dungeon slave.  To not confabulate balance with equity.

I heartily agree with this.

Organized Play was getting a stranglehold on the publically visible manifestations of the hobby. The end result was the GM looking like an underappreciated human game server with the players having little else to engage the world than debating the finer points of party composition, gear, build, and class balance. Like MMO in slo-mo, which probably gave rise to such comparisons, and a marked rise in the desire for the players to share control over the "server programming" so they could make their own "modded content."

Kicking all that video gaming baggage to the curb and reestablishing that the setting and GM matters, and that "Cult of Balance" is locked into white room arena thinking (not a fleshed, breathing world filled with options!), was like throwing the doors open to the playground for a new generation growing up without recess.