Voted on the "don't give a fuck" side. I remember being dirt poor, wanting to play older editions of D&D to get away from the 3rd edition complicated stuff, and while hoping to buy some 2nd edition books, buying 1st edition AD&D books. My disappointment vanished rapidly after reading them.

What I realized then was not that old=good, but that new=more money for the publisher, not more fun for me. Every new game is a potential great year of fun for me, or another $20-100 flushed down the toilet to become a dust collector on my shelf.

So the OSR's original purpose, bringing back support for old games, felt to me like the right direction when it was about reviving interest (and print copies) for old games and getting on with the hobby and not the industry. When the OSR thing seemed to turn more into another laundry list of personalities and their own systems, I lost any desire to think of myself as part of it. I like to play older games because they often have certain game traits I find more useful in play, and are often more simple and clean in terms of rules-bloat.

Maybe the best way I can say it is that when OSR was just interested hobbyists talking about older games, I found it fun. When it became about making flags and talking about OSRIC / LL / LotFP like these were really their own thing, and not clones, it turned into another edition war. Except these weren't editions, they were like arguing over which printing of a module you had...

Edit: If you've made OSR stuff, and are proud of it, cool. Nothing wrong with that. I see no difference between Hasbro and Joes Backyard Print shop - they're both trying to make a buck off gamers, and gamers pay game designers to make games. It's a fair trade. It's when people get all religious about it.

My impression is that OSR is mostly about D&D, and not other old games. I always liked Runequest (and even Rolemaster) more.

I hate lamb so I didn't vote mango chutney.

I'm not at all interested in the whole OSR thing especially as a movement.  I played those older versions of D&D because that's what was being played at the time but I always tolerated them rather than actually liking them.  I don't miss them and I am not the least bit nostalgic for them.  It's no skin off my nose if people like them and want to play them but I didn't like them when they were new and I don't like them any better now.  I'm just not a nostalgic person by nature.

It gets a bit tedious when people equate this OSR stuff with doing things yourself especially if it is accompanied by insinuations that people who aren't doing it are sheeple that need everything spoonfed to them.  This is just tedious gamer hipsterism.

Some of the stuff is really cool but playing old skool D&D is just not something that I am interested in doing.  If there had been another option that was practically available back then, I would have never played it at all.  It's what people were playing though so I played it and tolerated it.

edit - To clarify, 99% of my time spent playing older editions of D&D was spent playing 2e.  I spent a lot of time playing that and had a lot of fun but it was always despite the system rather than because of it.  It found it to be a gigantic, fiddly, inconsistent mess and that got worse the more stuff they published for it.

I'm neither buying nor producing commercial stuff, but the DIY aspect makes a lot of neat stuff available. I think this is a notable "school" feature, and it puts me in mind of the old days in which even the pro zines were sustained by material from gamers. What's cool now is that we don't need mimeograph machines and APAs, because we have the Internet!

This relates to the tendency to simpler game systems, and less fixation on them, than in "new school" D&D. Since we're not expecting some kind of rigorous abstract balance, it doesn't take some kind of expert to make up fun things that are plenty good.

Dwimmermount broke the OSR.  And the gravy train called Kickstarter continues to beat the dead horse.  

However, it does allow for professional product to be produced for TSR D&D, so there is that.  

Therefore "reasons."

Quote from: Phillip;866338I'm neither buying nor producing commercial stuff, but the DIY aspect makes a lot of neat stuff available. I think this is a notable "school" feature, and it puts me in mind of the old days in which even the pro zines were sustained by material from gamers. What's cool now is that we don't need mimeograph machines and APAs, because we have the Internet!

This relates to the tendency to simpler game systems, and less fixation on them, than in "new school" D&D. Since we're not expecting some kind of rigorous abstract balance, it doesn't take some kind of expert to make up fun things that are plenty good.

I've produced hundreds of hours of entertainment using 'new school' games. The system isn't the issue.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866381I've produced hundreds of hours of entertainment using 'new school' games. The system isn't the issue.

How much of it have you made available in pdf form? What online 'zines have you published it in? What do you have up on RPGNow for downloading? I'm pretty sure his point was that rules-light systems make it much easier for amateur gamers to create shareable and publishable content.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866382How much of it have you made available in pdf form? What online 'zines have you published it in? What do you have up on RPGNow for downloading? I'm pretty sure his point was that rules-light systems make it much easier for amateur gamers to create shareable and publishable content.

I'm not sure it's the system, but it has been done with the OSR in a way that really isn't happening outside that space. And before Tetsubo protests, I didn't say it doesn't happen at all, merely that it's on nowhere near the same scale when you look at the major commercial systems.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866436I'm not sure it's the system, but it has been done with the OSR in a way that really isn't happening outside that space. And before Tetsubo protests, I didn't say it doesn't happen at all, merely that it's on nowhere near the same scale when you look at the major commercial systems.

  I think a lot of it has to do.with the OGL and the sheer scale of D&D--any D&D--in the hobby.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;866449I think a lot of it has to do.with the OGL and the sheer scale of D&D--any D&D--in the hobby.

3.x and Pathfinder are OGL, but you don't see nearly the same amount of fan-generated material with those as with what's out there in the OSR.

Quote from: aspiringlich;8664503.x and Pathfinder are OGL, but you don't see nearly the same amount of fan-generated material with those as with what's out there in the OSR.

Because Pathfinder had a single large company producing a decent quantity of high production value products that are well-liked.

For the OSR, the only products that will be out there are those that the fans will produce.

Quote from: estar;866457Because Pathfinder had a single large company producing a decent quantity of high production value products that are well-liked.

For the OSR, the only products that will be out there are those that the fans will produce.

And yet back in the day when TSR was putting out official material, there was still plenty of impetus among gamers to produce their own stuff and share it amongst themselves.

Quote from: estar;866457Because Pathfinder had a single large company producing a decent quantity of high production value products that are well-liked.

For the OSR, the only products that will be out there are those that the fans will produce.

Yeah, that's what I think. There's no one major publisher for people to ride.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866458And yet back in the day when TSR was putting out official material, there was still plenty of impetus among gamers to produce their own stuff and share it amongst themselves.

Was there? My only connection to the broader community was via the house organs of Dragon and Dungeon. I wasn't online much until the mid-90s, and didn't do much online involving D&D until probably the end of the 90s. It never seemed to me that there was much content with broad reach until far more recently, with the lowering of the barrier to desktop publishing and POD really opening the floodgates.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866459Yeah, that's what I think. There's no one major publisher for people to ride.

Was there? My only connection to the broader community was via the house organs of Dragon and Dungeon. I wasn't online much until the mid-90s, and didn't do much online involving D&D until probably the end of the 90s. It never seemed to me that there was much content with broad reach until far more recently, with the lowering of the barrier to desktop publishing and POD really opening the floodgates.

I didn't say it was within broad reach. That came with the spread of the internet. But back in the 70s and 80s there were any number of amateur fanzines going around.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866468I didn't say it was within broad reach. That came with the spread of the internet. But back in the 70s and 80s there were any number of amateur fanzines going around.

And I could find copies of fanzines to browse/purchase in my local game store.

I think one difference was the greater popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s of TTRPGs. There were a lot more players and GMs back then so there was a lot of demand for material whether as a professional or amateur publication. Despite the difficulties of amateur publishing back then there were still a lot of publications because TSR and the other companies couldn't publish enough stuff to meet the demand.

Nowadays the market size is a lot smaller so there is less overall demand. Pathfinder probably can publish enough material to satisfy most of the demand of those folks who run and play pathfinder and who don't create their own stuff.