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Author Topic: What is the point of Retro-Clones?  (Read 7056 times)

Theros

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What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« on: June 17, 2021, 09:56:13 AM »
I have to admit: I don't get the OSR. There seem to be two kinds of D&D retro-clones: the first is one that hews as close as possible to a TSR edition of D&D and the second is one that only treats a TSR edition of D&D as a point of departure and goes far afield to something that is ultimately barely recognizable as D&D.

The latter is the most egregious to me... I'd rather put a gun in my mouth than sit and listen to someone's long list of house-rules for D&D. Why on earth would I waste time with a retro-clone? I'm a simple man... I want to play a game that is actually called D&D right there on the cover, not someone's motley collection of heartbreaker house-rules. In general, these retro-clones stink of the idea that "the rules will save you" and that the most entertaining thing about RPGs is the rules themselves, like the rules will give you a good experience. That is NOT my experience. In my experience, the only thing fun about an RPG is when it goes off the rails with funny/inappropriate jokes and other immature bullshit. Rules are only necessary to give the impression of a structure, but the memorable parts of a game session is when the structure goes out the window and hilarity and disaster ensue.

The first type of retro-clone also confuses me... if you are going to make a retro-clone that hews as close as possible to a TSR edition of D&D, why not just play a TSR edition of D&D? It is super easy to get the rules in digital format through any number of websites and you can even get the rules and supplements in print from places like DTRPG (although I admit the idea of giving royalties to WOTC is less than appealing). But the original versions have a lot of advantages over retro-clones... they have tons more nostalgia to them; they aren't written in the sterile, clinical style that is popular today; and most of all they are far, far, far more concise. Compare OSE to B/X, for example. The Moldvay Basic rulebook is something like 64 pages and OSE is something like 300 pages.

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?

Zalman

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2021, 10:01:35 AM »
It is super easy to get the rules in digital format through any number of websites

But that was not the case when many of the true clones were created.
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HappyDaze

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2021, 10:01:44 AM »
I don't care for the OSR much at all because, while I enjoyed older versions of D&D, I enjoyed them despite their rules, not because of them. If more OSR writers/publishers could find a way to mix an "old school feel" (in varying degrees) along with more modern sets of rules (not just minor tweaks to the old rules), then I'd be likely to give them more of my attention.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2021, 10:05:18 AM by HappyDaze »

Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2021, 10:04:26 AM »
It is super easy to get the rules in digital format through any number of websites

But that was not the case when many of the true clones were created.

Well piracy has always existed and really deserves the credit for "saving" D&D and laying the groundwork for the OSR, but yes, there was indeed a time when retro-clones made sense because they were the easiest way to legally host homebrewed adventures for TSR editions of the game. I feel like the OSR has moved waaaaaay past that original mission, however.

GeekyBugle

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2021, 10:06:21 AM »
I have to admit: I don't get the OSR. There seem to be two kinds of D&D retro-clones: the first is one that hews as close as possible to a TSR edition of D&D and the second is one that only treats a TSR edition of D&D as a point of departure and goes far afield to something that is ultimately barely recognizable as D&D.

Well, that's your opinion dude.

What's stoping you from playing whatever you want?
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Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2021, 10:08:24 AM »
I don't care for the OSR much at all because, while I enjoyed older versions of D&D, I enjoyed them despite their rules, not because of them. If more OSR writers/publishers could find a way to mix old school fee (in varying degrees) l with more modern sets of rules, I'd be likely to give them more of my attention.

Honestly, all RPG rules are bad. Playing a game with a physical telephone book of rules is bad. Game mechanics and systems are not fun. TSR editions of D&D are just as wonky as anything else, from an outsider's perspective. There was a time when boardgames shipped with a page and a half of rules (now they ship with textbooks) and we've all decided that this "new normal" is just A-OK with us.

There needs to be just enough rules in an RPG for suspension of disbelief, to give players the impression that they aren't just BSing everything and playing make-believe. But the memorable parts of the game are when it all devolves and the DM starts to roll out all the "terrible life decisions" that the characters have just made and hilarious disaster ensues. That's the only thing that makes any of it any fun!

Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2021, 10:09:15 AM »
I have to admit: I don't get the OSR. There seem to be two kinds of D&D retro-clones: the first is one that hews as close as possible to a TSR edition of D&D and the second is one that only treats a TSR edition of D&D as a point of departure and goes far afield to something that is ultimately barely recognizable as D&D.

Well, that's your opinion dude.

What's stoping you from playing whatever you want?

The gov'ment!

No, nothing, I wasn't asking for permission. I'm just venting... ain't this website my own personal group therapy session??

I mean, I guess I am kinda curious about hearing a defense of the OSR, although I don't know if it will change my mind (but who knows?).

Zalman

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2021, 10:09:24 AM »
there was indeed a time when retro-clones made sense because they were the easiest way to legally host homebrewed adventures for TSR editions of the game. I feel like the OSR has moved waaaaaay past that original mission, however.

"The OSR" sounds like a boogeyman to me. I get that a few people are into "the OSR" as a "movement" or something, which was perhaps an important catalyst for creativity when it started, and as you imply perhaps less useful now. But what I see in reality is just a bunch of people making games, some good, some bad. I have no need to categorize those games into "OSR" and "not-OSR", just as I have little need to judge via any ISM.
Old School? Back in my day we just called it "School."

GeekyBugle

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2021, 10:14:35 AM »
I have to admit: I don't get the OSR. There seem to be two kinds of D&D retro-clones: the first is one that hews as close as possible to a TSR edition of D&D and the second is one that only treats a TSR edition of D&D as a point of departure and goes far afield to something that is ultimately barely recognizable as D&D.

Well, that's your opinion dude.

What's stoping you from playing whatever you want?

The gov'ment!

No, nothing, I wasn't asking for permission. I'm just venting... ain't this website my own personal group therapy session??

I mean, I guess I am kinda curious about hearing a defense of the OSR, although I don't know if it will change my mind (but who knows?).

Yeah no, I don't feel the need to deffend my tastes to anybody.
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

― George Orwell

HappyDaze

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2021, 10:15:48 AM »
I don't care for the OSR much at all because, while I enjoyed older versions of D&D, I enjoyed them despite their rules, not because of them. If more OSR writers/publishers could find a way to mix old school fee (in varying degrees) l with more modern sets of rules, I'd be likely to give them more of my attention.

Honestly, all RPG rules are bad. Playing a game with a physical telephone book of rules is bad. Game mechanics and systems are not fun. TSR editions of D&D are just as wonky as anything else, from an outsider's perspective. There was a time when boardgames shipped with a page and a half of rules (now they ship with textbooks) and we've all decided that this "new normal" is just A-OK with us.

There needs to be just enough rules in an RPG for suspension of disbelief, to give players the impression that they aren't just BSing everything and playing make-believe. But the memorable parts of the game are when it all devolves and the DM starts to roll out all the "terrible life decisions" that the characters have just made and hilarious disaster ensues. That's the only thing that makes any of it any fun!
I can't agree with you here. I like rules with more substance and I find minimalist rulesets unsatisfying. However, I do have my limits (e.g., after trying out Federation Commander, I determined I'd never go back to Star Fleet Battles).

Zalman

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #10 on: June 17, 2021, 10:17:12 AM »
There needs to be just enough rules in an RPG for suspension of disbelief

Isn't that a core tenet of "the OSR"?
Old School? Back in my day we just called it "School."

GeekyBugle

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #11 on: June 17, 2021, 10:30:09 AM »
I have to admit: I don't get the OSR. There seem to be two kinds of D&D retro-clones: the first is one that hews as close as possible to a TSR edition of D&D and the second is one that only treats a TSR edition of D&D as a point of departure and goes far afield to something that is ultimately barely recognizable as D&D.

Well, that's your opinion dude.

What's stoping you from playing whatever you want?

The gov'ment!

No, nothing, I wasn't asking for permission. I'm just venting... ain't this website my own personal group therapy session??

I mean, I guess I am kinda curious about hearing a defense of the OSR, although I don't know if it will change my mind (but who knows?).

You want to play D&D, yet you hate those OSR games that most resemble D&D because they are D&D. And at the same time you also hate those OSR games that aren't.

I wonder if this isn't just an attempt at a flame war. Or like the kids today would say: Bait.
Quote from: Rhedyn

Here is why this forum tends to be so stupid. Many people here think Joe Biden is "The Left", when he is actually Far Right and every US republican is just an idiot.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

― George Orwell

Chris24601

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #12 on: June 17, 2021, 10:32:37 AM »
No, nothing, I wasn't asking for permission. I'm just venting... ain't this website my own personal group therapy session??
No, that's The Big Purple. We're the anti-snowflake blowtorch forum where ideas that can't be defended come to die in a fire.

Now, I'm not OSR, but my system started off as a retro-clone of 4E precisely because the GSL associated with it did NOT make it something that could just be cut-and-paste copied in the way the OGL allowed of other editions and if I was going to go to all that work I was at least going to fix some of the more glaring errors. There was also a potential market as many people in my circles felt quite alienated by 5e and its throwing of every good idea from 4E (contrary to what some people think it was not universally horrible) under the bus.

Similarly, the system had a LOT of bloat and the digital character builders were becoming unusable due to software compatibility issues so creating a consolidated document so players wouldn't need to reference dozens of documents just to find the option that let their character do what their concept needed also felt like a worthwhile goal.

The designer in me also remembered the 4E designers claiming they went into the project with the idea of questioning everything... no sacred cows. So, if I was intending to create a spiritual successor for the people who enjoyed 4E's innovations rather than 5e's nostalgia, then I too should follow that mantra and question every last assumption made in the design of 4E to see if there wasn't a better/more fun way to do things.

As a result, over several years of playtesting and player feedback the mechanics morphed significantly. The first to die because I didn't like it anyway was a lot of the narrative mechanics (ex. measuring durations by elements like "end of the encounter" or "once per encounter" was replaced with real time durations). Next to die because I trying to build mass combat rules into the system from the start was the insane quadratic scaling that 4E applied to everything such that something more than three levels above your party level was deadly and everything three or more levels below was a joke.

The net result of those two was a much more simulationist and sandbox-friendly system and also into a system that is perfectly tailored to the campaign setting I've linked to it... which once upon a time was the norm; each game having its own bespoke game system to go along with its unique setting; not trying to hammer the same mechanics into setting where they're much less of a good fit.

Anyway... I appreciate the OSR titles that swerve away from the base for what they are... a designers attempt to create their own perfect system to go with their settings.

And the thing is... that's how D&D started too. It started out as just "someone's long list of house-rules" for the Chainmail wargame. 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e were all just "someone's long list of house-rules" for OD&D. Palladium Fantasy got its start as Kevin's "long list of hose-rules" for early D&D. Pathfinder was just "someone's long list of house-rules" for 3.5e.

Your argument is basically, McDonalds was the first fast food place, so why would anyone ever want to create a fast food place with a different menu? Why would anyone go to any other fast food burger place when there's a McDonalds you can go to instead?

Because sometimes McDonalds isn't what you're looking for.

Theros

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2021, 10:33:11 AM »
I don't care for the OSR much at all because, while I enjoyed older versions of D&D, I enjoyed them despite their rules, not because of them. If more OSR writers/publishers could find a way to mix old school fee (in varying degrees) l with more modern sets of rules, I'd be likely to give them more of my attention.

Honestly, all RPG rules are bad. Playing a game with a physical telephone book of rules is bad. Game mechanics and systems are not fun. TSR editions of D&D are just as wonky as anything else, from an outsider's perspective. There was a time when boardgames shipped with a page and a half of rules (now they ship with textbooks) and we've all decided that this "new normal" is just A-OK with us.

There needs to be just enough rules in an RPG for suspension of disbelief, to give players the impression that they aren't just BSing everything and playing make-believe. But the memorable parts of the game are when it all devolves and the DM starts to roll out all the "terrible life decisions" that the characters have just made and hilarious disaster ensues. That's the only thing that makes any of it any fun!
I can't agree with you here. I like rules with more substance and I find minimalist rulesets unsatisfying. However, I do have my limits (e.g., after trying out Federation Commander, I determined I'd never go back to Star Fleet Battles).

To be clear, I wouldn't consider the 64 pages of rules in Moldvay Basic (mentioned in the OP) to be "rules minimalist." When I run D&D I tend to ignore a lot of stuff in the rules: I fudge time and torches, I leave encumbrance up to "common sense," and I make all sorts of ad hoc rulings mainly because I don't want to have to open up a 64 page rulebook when the game is going on... I certainly don't even want a 300 page rulebook to even be at the table, let alone something the players will expect to be applied to the game.

A good game session is like skipping a stone over a lake. The rules are the water and the stone is the game... it needs to skip off those rules every now and again, but it is the parts where the stone is flying free through the air that make the session a memorable one.

There needs to be just enough rules in an RPG for suspension of disbelief

Isn't that a core tenet of "the OSR"?

You'd think, but like I said, more than half of all retro-clones are little more than someone's house rules document that they published with some budget artwork. You'd think if games needed less rules to get in the way, they would stop adding them to the game. Then there is the other kind of retro-clone, which largely reprints the original rules but more often than not manages to balloon the page count to some ungodly number of pages, as if what D&D really needed was clearer rules. What a D&D session needs is good friends who have good rapport and know how to laugh and have a good time (which is basically antithetical to the overly-educated thin-skinned players of today).

thedungeondelver

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Re: What is the point of Retro-Clones?
« Reply #14 on: June 17, 2021, 10:38:27 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. 
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Mcbobbo sums it up nicely.

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