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Author Topic: What is the point of Retro-Clones?  (Read 7045 times)

David Johansen

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #15 on: June 17, 2021, 10:39:37 AM »
There needs to be just enough rules in an RPG for suspension of disbelief

Isn't that a core tenet of "the OSR"?
Given that the movement started with OSRIC?  Probably not.

But there's a number of valid reasons for the OSR.  First and foremost because someone wanted to do it and frankly that's a good enough reason.  People are creative and put effort into stuff but they can't sell it using the Dungeons & Dragons trademark, but with the advent of the OGL they can write down what they like.  Also, there has been a market for it which means other people like the idea and are willing to pay for it.  The original poster isn't part of that market but that doesn't mean the demand isn't there.  Personally the biggest thing is people being tired of being told how to play by big companies that don't really give a shit what any given individual wants from the game.  They are a corporation and they want to sell as many books as they can at the best margin they can get.  Lastly, the past four editions of D&D have been utterly shit garbage and why anyone would give WOTC a dime for game design and art at this point is beyond me.
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Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #16 on: June 17, 2021, 10:55:48 AM »
And that brings up another issue... why is so much of the OSR obsessed with B/X? B/X was not a standalone game, it wasn't a "separate" version of D&D... it was literally around for only a couple years and was replaced by BECMI, which did offer the full game. B/X strikes me as being for people who like shareware versions of software more than the full registered version... why base retro-clones on something that was never the full game in the first place?

I actually agree with a lot of what you're on about but this statement is factually wrong.  Basic & Expert were absolutely a separate D&D game.

Basic and Expert D&D are two halves of the same whole, Expert D&D takes the character created in Basic D&D all the way through 20th+ level - I have the Tom Moldvay/Dave Cook edited Expert rules (as well as the Basic predecessor) right here.  Are you perhaps thinking of the Introductory rules edited by J. Eric Holmes which did not have an official TSR "Expert" edition (actually, they did: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons).

You can start and play a character in Basic & Expert all the way through retirement level at 20th+.  It has high level spells and monsters and magical items that are more apropos for high level characters, the works.  That TSR kept reinventing the wheel on that front doesn't negate it.

It is clear that TSR did not see or even intend B/X as a terminal product... if X hadn't been retitled as E, it would have just been BXCMI. But that's all besides the point—Cook Expert clearly refers to future products, like referring to the Companion set on page 8 (which did come out shortly after the last print of Cook Expert) and admits that it doesn't fully support play higher than level 14 (for example, no spells higher than 5th/6th level). This idea that B/X is somehow a complete game is a perverse conceit of fans, not reality.

If people want to just play B/X, then mazel tov, enjoy yourself. You're not forced to buy the Companion set and you can end your campaign whenever you like. Feel free to ignore CMI for the purposes of your own gaming. Ignoring the actual-factual history of the development of the game, however, is just some sort of weird historical revisionism.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2021, 11:01:43 AM by Theros »

FingerRod

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #17 on: June 17, 2021, 11:00:05 AM »
I think retro-clones and the OSR are two separate things.

I always thought the purpose of retro-clones was to mimic the early versions of the game so additional material could be created which would point to a free (or cheap) and readily available ruleset, that people were free to create content for. I cannot create an adventure and officially advertise it is for AD&D, I can for OSRIC.

The OSR is a runaway train and a mess of a concept to try to define. However, in all of that mess, staying super faithful to exact rules, or cloning, barely registers. Perhaps compatibility did at one point, but ideology seems to be the primary driver today.

Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2021, 11:02:57 AM »
I think retro-clones and the OSR are two separate things.

I always thought the purpose of retro-clones was to mimic the early versions of the game so additional material could be created which would point to a free (or cheap) and readily available ruleset, that people were free to create content for. I cannot create an adventure and officially advertise it is for AD&D, I can for OSRIC.

The OSR is a runaway train and a mess of a concept to try to define. However, in all of that mess, staying super faithful to exact rules, or cloning, barely registers. Perhaps compatibility did at one point, but ideology seems to be the primary driver today.

Ok that is legitimately the first interesting thing I've read here... can you tell me more about what that "ideology" is?

thedungeondelver

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #19 on: June 17, 2021, 11:21:58 AM »

It is clear that TSR did not see or even intend B/X as a terminal product... if X hadn't been retitled as E, it would have just been BXCMI. But that's all besides the point—Cook Expert clearly refers to future products, like referring to the Companion set on page 8 (which did come out shortly after the last print of Cook Expert) and admits that it doesn't fully support play higher than level 14 (for example, no spells higher than 5th/6th level). This idea that B/X is somehow a complete game is a perverse conceit of fans, not reality.


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FingerRod

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #20 on: June 17, 2021, 11:26:14 AM »
I think retro-clones and the OSR are two separate things.

I always thought the purpose of retro-clones was to mimic the early versions of the game so additional material could be created which would point to a free (or cheap) and readily available ruleset, that people were free to create content for. I cannot create an adventure and officially advertise it is for AD&D, I can for OSRIC.

The OSR is a runaway train and a mess of a concept to try to define. However, in all of that mess, staying super faithful to exact rules, or cloning, barely registers. Perhaps compatibility did at one point, but ideology seems to be the primary driver today.

Ok that is legitimately the first interesting thing I've read here... can you tell me more about what that "ideology" is?

Sure. So let’s say I played BECMI in the 80’s or OD&D even earlier than that. The ideology I am talking about could be me zooming in on a particular aspect of that gaming experience and deciding that my game would use that as a principle tenet. Or perhaps I worship Matt Finch’s primer, and I build a game based on a couple of the principles he mentions. Those items, important to me but not necessarily important to others, fits under the OSR umbrella.

For example, Into the Odd was created by an independent game maker. The word ‘Odd’ in the title was originally a play on OD&D. The actual game keeps very little from OD&D but it expands upon interesting elements, from the perspective of creator. There are no classes, traditional levels, wilderness rules, etc. tying it back to the original, only ideological connections from the perspective of the designer.

Pat
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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #21 on: June 17, 2021, 11:39:33 AM »
I always thought the purpose of retro-clones was to mimic the early versions of the game so additional material could be created which would point to a free (or cheap) and readily available ruleset, that people were free to create content for. I cannot create an adventure and officially advertise it is for AD&D, I can for OSRIC.

The OSR is a runaway train and a mess of a concept to try to define. However, in all of that mess, staying super faithful to exact rules, or cloning, barely registers. Perhaps compatibility did at one point, but ideology seems to be the primary driver today.
This is correct. The original goal of OSRIC was to create a trademark that publishers with a wink wink nudge nudge could use to show their products were compatible with AD&D 1st first edition. That's why OSRIC first edition wasn't a complete game. They wanted publishers to be able to write modules without referencing their first edition books, so they only included the rules modules needed to interface with. You weren't supposed to use OSRIC as a stand-alone game. You were supposed to play AD&D 1st edition with the DMG and PH, using modules with the word "OSRIC" on the cover. OSRIC was initially just a legal shield that allowed people to publish material for first edition. This isn't a guess, or speculation. That was the explicit, stated goal of the project.

That changed with second edition. A lot of people were interested in playing OSRIC directly, so they expanded it into a complete game. Later clones like Labyrinth Lord were created from the ground up to be independent games.

Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #22 on: June 17, 2021, 11:53:05 AM »
Sure. So let’s say I played BECMI in the 80’s or OD&D even earlier than that. The ideology I am talking about could be me zooming in on a particular aspect of that gaming experience and deciding that my game would use that as a principle tenet. Or perhaps I worship Matt Finch’s primer, and I build a game based on a couple of the principles he mentions. Those items, important to me but not necessarily important to others, fits under the OSR umbrella.

Ok this makes sense to me... but it also shows how artificial the "old school" is. There was no one "school of thought" about how to play D&D back in the day... everyone did it a little differently. It seems like the "old school" is an artificial and largely myopic effort to distill some "philosophy" from older games, even when those various old games were written very differently and played in any number of ways in actual practice.

Of course, I don't particularly run different games in vastly different ways... in broad strokes, when I run TMNT & Other Strangeness it is largely the same as when I run BECMI or anything else. The set-up for the games are different (1980's NYC vs fantasy medieval land) so the scenarios and complications play out differently, but my style for GMing doesn't change all that much. And a GM's style is always pretty idiosyncratic. It would be difficult and really quite pointless to distill it for others to emulate.

GeekyBugle

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #23 on: June 17, 2021, 12:26:28 PM »
Sure. So let’s say I played BECMI in the 80’s or OD&D even earlier than that. The ideology I am talking about could be me zooming in on a particular aspect of that gaming experience and deciding that my game would use that as a principle tenet. Or perhaps I worship Matt Finch’s primer, and I build a game based on a couple of the principles he mentions. Those items, important to me but not necessarily important to others, fits under the OSR umbrella.

Ok this makes sense to me... but it also shows how artificial the "old school" is. There was no one "school of thought" about how to play D&D back in the day... everyone did it a little differently. It seems like the "old school" is an artificial and largely myopic effort to distill some "philosophy" from older games, even when those various old games were written very differently and played in any number of ways in actual practice.

Of course, I don't particularly run different games in vastly different ways... in broad strokes, when I run TMNT & Other Strangeness it is largely the same as when I run BECMI or anything else. The set-up for the games are different (1980's NYC vs fantasy medieval land) so the scenarios and complications play out differently, but my style for GMing doesn't change all that much. And a GM's style is always pretty idiosyncratic. It would be difficult and really quite pointless to distill it for others to emulate.

Okay, close shop, everybody go home, there's no point in this myopic effort because some rando anonimous troll said so in the internet...
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Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #24 on: June 17, 2021, 12:28:59 PM »
rando anonimous troll

You spelled two of these three words incorrectly. I'll let you figure out which!

Eric Diaz

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2021, 12:50:46 PM »
One obvious point is that I cannot write and sell a D&D adventure (or module, bestiary, etc.), but I can write something for S&W, and I can reference the OSE SRD online without needing a PDF, all my players cna get OSRIC for free (or cheap, if physical) etc.

I can even legally put together my own version with my favorite stock artists, get it printed on demand, etc.

If you like D&D the way it is, you don't need anyone's house rules. But then again you wouldn't need Unearthed Arcana, Skills & Powers, Tasha's Cauldron, or even Blackmoor and greyhawk. You could be playing "pure" D&D without those pesky thieves!

Or course, I happen to LIKE my own house rules better than most versions of D&D, so I created my own retroclone, modules, etc.
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Pat
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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #26 on: June 17, 2021, 12:54:54 PM »
Ok this makes sense to me... but it also shows how artificial the "old school" is.
Not at all. There is huge variation with the OSR. After all, it's been around for 15 years, and become quite popular. And it's always been a grass roots movement. Anyone can claim anything is OSR. But there are core philosophies as well.

One of the original principles of the OSR was an attempt to rediscover the original playstyle. And by original, I mean original. I'm not talking about the broader West or East Coast scenes in the 1970s. I'm talking about two(three?) cities, Lake Geneva and the Twin Cities. And more specifically, two tables, and two campaigns: Greyhawk and Blackmoor. Or just Greyhawk. That's the style promoted in things like Matt Finch's Primer. In the early years, the OSR was very heavily focused on that very specific playstyle. It was about figuring out how the rules were supposed to be used, by the people who created them, instead of the many diverse ways they ended up being used, by all the people who picked up the game later. It was also very specifically focused on the three little brown booklets of OD&D, and maybe (maybe) the supplements, though some even considered Supplement I: Greyhawk (the very first supplement published for any any RPG) to be a step too far. (To be fair, it did radically change the game.)

There was also a more general focus on the wild and woolly days of the 1970s. Not just Gygax and Greyhawk, but things like Arduin, Alarums and Excursions, and all the Judges Guild products. It was admiration for that huge surge of creativity and wild experimentation, but not an an attempt to copy anything in specific. Instead, they wanted to recreate that flowering of ideas. This led to things like Fight On!, Santicore, all the weird little zines, and even the blogosphere's obsession with random tables. It very much promoted the idea of self-publishing, genre mixing, sword & sorcery and weird fiction influences, and more.

There were other influences as well. Despite it's obvious connection to the first and most influential clone, OSRIC, AD&D 1st edition has always been weirdly marginalized. A lot of that has to do with the communities. The original OSR crowd were people who were dissatisfied D&D third edition, tried Castles & Crusades, and then had a falling out and created OSRIC. They were (mostly) distinct from the people who never stopped playing AD&D1e. The latter group were significant, but underrepresented on the web. One of their few hangouts was Dragonsfoot. So there was more focus on OD&D than AD&D.

B/X also became very popular, though that was a newer trend (not too new; this was still the mid to late aughts). OD&D is purer and more wide open, but B/X is tighter and more concise, and an easier entry point. For those who were less interested in capturing the original playstyle but still liked old school games, it became the default. Labyrinth Lord prospered, and newer games that weren't really clones but were old school inspired, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, most commonly used it as a base. It kind of became the Rosetta Stone of systems.

There's also a persistent reverence for the original players. Not just Gygax and Arneson, but also people like Mike Mornard, Robert Kunst, and Tim Kask. This is strongly associated with the attempt to recreate the Greyhawk/Gygaxian playstyle, and while it exists, its importance is typically overstated by people critical of the OSR. If was a driving force, then Robert Kunst would have made more money than James Raggi, but that's clearly not the case.

Since then, the OSR has gone in many, many other directions. It's become very hard to define. But understanding a bit about its origins and where it came from, and the major trends, can help get a handle on it.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2021, 12:57:02 PM by Pat »

GeekyBugle

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #27 on: June 17, 2021, 01:07:22 PM »
rando anonimous troll

You spelled two of these three words incorrectly. I'll let you figure out which!

Sick burn! Especially since English isn't my mother tongue.

You're still a rando, anonymous troll. Your opening post was and still is rage bait, and your latter posts confirm this facts.

TROLL.
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Jam The MF

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #28 on: June 17, 2021, 01:43:03 PM »
I think retro-clones and the OSR are two separate things.

I always thought the purpose of retro-clones was to mimic the early versions of the game so additional material could be created which would point to a free (or cheap) and readily available ruleset, that people were free to create content for. I cannot create an adventure and officially advertise it is for AD&D, I can for OSRIC.

The OSR is a runaway train and a mess of a concept to try to define. However, in all of that mess, staying super faithful to exact rules, or cloning, barely registers. Perhaps compatibility did at one point, but ideology seems to be the primary driver today.


Yes; the OSR is a runaway train, and i like it.  Some good points have been made in this thread.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2021, 01:44:57 PM by Jam The MF »
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Torque2100

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #29 on: June 17, 2021, 01:50:39 PM »
In my opinion, there are two main reasons for Retroclones.

1. To make out of print rules playable again without having to chase after increasingly scarce rulebooks.  Quite often the rule explanations are laid out and explained better to make them more accessible to newer players.  This can allow a new generation to experience the way things were in an older edition of the rules.  My ur example of this would be Old School Essentials, which is a ruleset that is still very much the original OD&D but explains the rules far better than the original White Box or  B/X sets ever did.

2. To create a "fork" of an earlier version of a ruleset.  Let's face it, quite often when a new edition of a game comes out many people are unhappy with the direction the new edition has taken. There may be radical changes to the rules which alter the flow of the game.  This is especially true of major edition changes like the change from AD&D to D&D 3.5.  A good example to return to the OD&D example is Swords and Wizardry.  S&W takes a look at Basic DnD with fresh eyes and re-imagines and changes the rules advancing the OD&D's design in a different direction.