TheRPGSite

Poll attached. Personally, i give short shrift to anyone willing to attach the word 'movement' to a set of RPG products. I do my own home-brews, so have no need to buy someone else's. I have d&d editions and books coming out of my ears, so much so that i need no more products of any type for d&d type gaming for the rest of my life, probably.

I have zero fucks to give.

If I was nasty, I'd ask you to define OSR.

I'm not, so define "giving a fuck" instead :D!

I mean, does it mean I care what the "members of the movement" think? Then it's a resounding no, I'm not even sure who is a member of the OSR movement and who isn't, and it doesn't impact my perception of them as people.

But, if it does mean "are you interested and could possibly purchase new OSR products"?
Then I'd have to vote yes, I might give a fuck, depending on the attractiveness of the chick asking for the fuck in question;)!

I said Not Me but I hate it so I guess that means I do care, so maybe "reasons"?

I voted "reasons" because there are different aspects to the OSR and not all of them get equal fucks given.

I am happy that the "movement" happened. Not for myself or any other old grog with dozens of D&D editions sitting on our shelves ready to be used at our leisure, but for younger gamers who entered the hobby at a time when classic editions were not as easy to come by.

For these folks who had only modern rpg titles available, you know in between the time when the ocean drank Atlantis( after WOTC yanked the OD&D pdfs) and the rise of the sons of Aryas ( D&D classics goodness) there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, OSR, destined to wear the jeweled crown of old school goodness upon an OGL brow.

So there for a time, new gamers in search of an old school play experience had very limited options. The OSR brought free clone systems, which in turn provided a framework for new old school adventure material. This was very awesome.

Now that the back catalog of old editions are for sale again the "movement" such as it is, isn't really needed anymore. I think it was a success in that it showed the industry that there was still a market for classic type products. Now that they are on the market again, the battle is won.

So as an ongoing movement I think its done. New great classic style products are always welcomed though.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;861238Not for myself or any other old grog with dozens of D&D editions sitting on our shelves ready to be used at our leisure, but for younger gamers who entered the hobby at a time when classic editions were not as easy to come by.

Yeah, that probably gets a 'reasons' from me too. I'm happy for those 23 gamers. ;)

Baby Jesus gives a fuck. Why don't you think of him?

(Ooh, mango chutney!)

I think people forget that the OSR has no defining purpose other than the fact that that a bunch of people found playing, promoting, and publishing for classic editions of D&D is interesting and fun.

Really that it.

Everything stems from that. The DiY ethos because nobody was supporting classic edition commercially. The openness, kit bashing, genre mashes, and sharing because the OGL was the only practical way of getting classic D&D material out without being getting a cease and desist from Wizards. Using classic edition mechanics means many are favorable to the idea of Rulings Not Rules.

Some want it to be more. But really does it need to be anything more?

As for giving a fuck. Well do you like playing, promoting, or publishing for a classic D&D edition? If yes to any of those then yes,you give a fuck and are part of the OSR.

I voted Me!Me!

I never would have run a 1e game without OSRIC and the OSR.
I first played D&D about a year an half before 3e came out (in middle school). But I wouldn't have ever GMed an old-school game without the OSR reminding me that hey, this thing used to be a lot simpler, you'd probably enjoy that more.

Guess I'm one of those "younger" gamer's the OSR was good for.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LHG-kcY33kc/U4OeD3AXyNI/AAAAAAAAAm0/tj8b4gVeXv8/s1600/tumblr_lo1qh68nVL1qzgmxb.gif)

I voted "Not Me", but that's largely because the OSR has played a key role in persuading me that, outside of some outliers (mostly from 2E and 4E), D&D and I just really don't fit that well. So in that sense, I do care a little about the OSR ... but mostly from the perspective of persuading me that it and I are best off going our separate ways. :)

Voted "not me," but I admit that's because I was kinda checked-out of the hobby during that small period when classic D&D editions were unavailable to the masses.

As to the concept of OSR gamers and the OSR community, no. Gamers as a whole, we are altogether too ready to divide ourselves already.

There's a lot of interesting and cool ideas associated with OSR, particularly on the blog False Machine (http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/), more than a few fun random tables on that particular blogging community I've snapped up for my own campaigns.  All the stuff that's basically internet scenester drama plus the fact I prefer 3.5 ( :u ) makes me want to keep a 10 foot pole between myself and it, even if the game settings and elements created by people like David McGrogan are actually way more in touch with my preferred playstyle by far than any WoTC product.

I said "reasons" because I treasure all of the inspirational blogs, the "DIY" philosophy and the very fun, imaginative and evocative products the movement has spawned.

On the other had, I loathe the politics and the geek faction wars going on. While I truly admire the talent and creativity of the OSR "figureheads" most of my personal interactions with them have been pretty sour. They've either given off an air of "yeah I'm a genius you aren't worthy of talking with me unless it's exactly in the way that I want" or they've come across as paranoid, narcissistic curmudgeons who take everything that I've said to them in the worst possible faith.

Way to encourage other aspiring writers you prima donnas.

'Me!Me!' for me as well.
I'd long ago written off D&D but the OSR content... the Primer and such... caught my interest and the flood of great content that followed has kept me interested. Nothing to do with 'nostalgia' because I never played those games that way... but it presented a different way of looking at D&D than I'd had lodged into my head (mostly from associating with other D&D players).

I particularly like the 'punk'/DIY aspects of it... producing material that would never have seen the light of day under 'official' auspices and kind of giving the finger to more corporate concerns... the OSR stuff feels more like a 'hobby' and I like that.

Quote from: Opaopajr;861246Baby Jesus gives a fuck. Why don't you think of him?

He still owes me his lunch money. ;)

I don't care about the OSR. New school/old school/subhuman school - if they come out with a good game, great. If not, no biggie. The OSR is all (in 32 flavors) looking too old school D&D.

I voted Mango Chutney.

Because in the end all I really care about is having fun. I'm fighting the good fight against censorship, outrage assassinations, and shenanigans. However, all the debate about what's cool or not does nothing for me anymore (I used to be a HUGE theory nerd, back when I was tricked into giving a shit by THE SWINE).

I like some OSR stuff BUT the general level HP pool crap just irks me sideways. So I'm done with D&D (and friends). HOWEVER, there's just too much creative lovely amazing works out there to drop the works for the game. I can adapt, steal and modify to fit other games.

I'm both a ME! ME! and Not for ME! stuck together in a gooey mashed state of delicious controversy.

Hence, the Mango Chutney.

Quote from: Necrozius;861277I said "reasons" because I treasure all of the inspirational blogs, the "DIY" philosophy and the very fun, imaginative and evocative products the movement has spawned.

On the other had, I loathe the politics and the geek faction wars going on.

This. (Except I voted Me! Me! because I qualified that as "a fuck".)

The part of OSR that is about making new modules and such. Thats fine and good.

The part of OSR that seems to be using it as a front for game theft and what feels like an endless parade of "retro-clones" which are at times blatant theft. No. Thats not fine. Sure there are some innovative creations out there. But they are lost in the morass of colones and sometime cloned clones.

I think it's great, it produces tons of great material, both my 5e D&D and Classic D&D campaigns are primarily OSR based campaigns. It makes my life better, I definitely give a fuck, so Me! Me!

I voted Mango Chutney because I have no idea what it is or what you mean by it.

I voted "Not ME!" simply because I don't care enough to differentiate.  It's all D&D at the end of the day, which I may or may not steal ideas from at some point.

I think a lot of the time, OSR gets confused with DIY. Sure, I play/run LotFP, but I have near zero interest in old (or new, for that matter) editions of D&D. And I mod the shit out of LotFP to make it work the way I want. I have never played Basic DnD or Labyrinth Lord, and after reading the Rules Cyclopedia and LL, it'll probably stay that way.

I will, however, take what I like or want to emulate and use it in my own game, which uses the skeleton of an older edition, but with modern bionic parts bolted on that I either create myself or steal from others.

Which seems to be pretty much what most of the self-proclaimed "OSR" peeps do, judging from blogs and forum posts. Probably why it seems to be so hard to truly define.

All that said, I did just play in a one-shot of AD&D 2nd ed last weekend and it was actually fun. I don't remember it being fun back in the 90s.

I don't really care about them, but I have no reason to wish them anything other than well.  Some of the more extreme fringes of Talmudic scholarship within the movement rather make my asshole tired, but other than that if they're having fun, good on 'em.

Quote from: Doughdee222;861327I voted Mango Chutney because I have no idea what it is or what you mean by it.

Hit up a good Indian restaurant and ask for it. It's pure heaven on lamb. Pure. Heaven.

Don't give a fuck about OSR, because it's just edition warring by another name.

AD&D 1st edition is good enough for me. Don't care what came after, except for Dark Albion.

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;861392Don't give a fuck about OSR, because it's just edition warring by another name.

Actually, it's a little more than that.  It's edition war stuff that people are making money on, which gives them an air of 'reputability', so you have a bunch of people feeling justified with claiming their way is the 'true way to play' because they're selling their homebrew.

I greatly enjoy the OSR. Not all of it, but who enjoys 100% of any meme / organization / movement / whatever?

I love horror movies, I love RPGs, I love heavy metal, but do I love 100% of all horror movies, all RPGs or all metal? No, nor would that make sense. Of course, some stuff appeals to me and other stuff doesn't.

For me, the OSR has been mostly good stuff. I shrug off the lame because the good stuff often has been great stuff. Mazes & Minotaurs (http://storygame.free.fr/MAZES.htm) baby!

If you're talking about the products that are kinda sorta labeled OSR, lot of cool stuff.

If you're talking about +1s, blogospheres, circles, teh intarwebz and who last had a beer at Tenkar's Tavern, my lack of fucks is Absolute Infinite Zero, creating its own negative universe, or something.

So, mango chutney.

Quote from: Doughdee222;861327I voted Mango Chutney because I have no idea what it is or what you mean by it.

You just lost your Team Blue Jersey.

Definite "Not Me."

Herewith the reasoning.

As has been the case with every pastime, hobby, sport and entertainment in the history of the world, longtime aficionados got nostalgia for the Old Days -- the Old Days being, as is always the case with this syndrome, that time when said aficionados first discovered RPGs.  That time when they could play for many hours on end, they couldn't get enough of it, everything was breezy and marvelous and thrilling.

For a certain demographic, this meant OD&D.  It had nothing to do with the rules set, it had nothing to do with "simplicity."  It really had to do -- as is always the case with this syndrome -- with OD&D being the game the great majority of the nostalgic grognards having played at the time.  (I'm minded of the people on this board who've expressed similar nostalgia over EPT and TFT, those being the games they played in the 70s.)

Now this is fine.  However much of a trainwreck OD&D was as a rules set, it does today everything it did when it was first written.  It is as good a set of rules today as it was in 1975.  I'm glad people are having fun playing it.

But conflating this into a "movement," and ascribing certain generic virtues to "OSR" games, has to me two giant glaring errors.  

The first is that there's some kind of date range before which All Games Had These Mechanics, and after which Those Mechanics started cropping up, which is a fallacy: about 15 minutes after D&D was first published, people started coming up with new ways of doing things, and most of those "non-OSR" ways were entrenched in this game or that well before the end of the 70s.

The second is that this has anything to do with D&D, really.  D&D isn't the Holy Grail of the nostalgia movement because of any virtues it has.  It's the Holy Grail because it was the game the great majority of the nostalgia buffs were playing, back then.  If Chivalry & Sorcery had been the first RPG out of the gate, that would be the headliner of the OSR.

I chose "not me" because the genuinely interesting stuff coming out of the DIY D&D scene doesn't involve some sort of ideological reversion to the "old school" so much as it does a rich and parallel alternate direction of tabletop RPG evolution. Sure, most of the game mechanics involved in Stars Without Number were out there in the wild in the late 1970s, but could SWN have actually been written then without the intervening decades of context and hindsight we now have, and without the ongoing evolution of other strands of tabletop RPG development to provide the DIY crowd with something to compare themselves to and seek to distinguish themselves from?

For that matter, can any of you seriously imagine Vornheim coming about without Zak? The thing is dripping with the guy's personality and the material in there is both far too novel to really be called "old school" and far too crammed with Zak's signature style for anyone else to fake. And regardless of how you feel about Zak or his online persona or whatever, he's always been upfront about the fact that doesn't have any qualms about borrowing from more recent versions of D&D, and has taken stick from OSR ideologues for it.

Now that all the old editions save for OD&D are available legally on PDF (and I'm fairly sure that will change in the not-too-distant future, just as it did for the other books that got a reprint in the run up to 5E), straight retroclones of D&D are a pointless endeavour. If you want to turn heads these days you need to bring something novel to the table, and so fussing about trying to recapture how things were done back in the day is a fruitless endeavour. Historical research is interesting enough, but trying to recapture the experience of yesterday at your gaming table rather than thinking "What's going to be the most fun/entertaining/fulfilling for us today?" is a sterile exercise.

Quote from: Warthur;861416Now that all the old editions save for OD&D are available legally on PDF (and I'm fairly sure that will change in the not-too-distant future, just as it did for the other books that got a reprint in the run up to 5E), straight retroclones of D&D are a pointless endeavour.

Well, there's still a point to the OSRIC model, in that you or I can publish a module for OSRIC, while we can't for AD&D. I'm not sure what that gets you over publishing a module for "the world's most popular FRP" or something, but there is still a point to it, I feel.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;861426Well, there's still a point to the OSRIC model, in that you or I can publish a module for OSRIC, while we can't for AD&D. I'm not sure what that gets you over publishing a module for "the world's most popular FRP" or something, but there is still a point to it, I feel.

You don't need a fully-featured OSRIC rulebook to do that though, just a template for OSRIC-compatible statblocks (if that).

Quote from: Warthur;861416I chose "not me" because the genuinely interesting stuff coming out of the DIY D&D scene doesn't involve some sort of ideological reversion to the "old school" so much as it does a rich and parallel alternate direction of tabletop RPG evolution.

And the real Renaisssance was different from Classical Greece & Rome, too!
Your objections seem really silly to me.

Quote from: S'mon;861435And the real Renaisssance was different from Classical Greece & Rome, too!
Your objections seem really silly to me.

Not half as silly as comparing the OSR to the real Renaissance in the first place.

Quote from: Ravenswing;861414Definite "Not Me."

Herewith the reasoning.

... It's the Holy Grail because it was the game the great majority of the nostalgia buffs were playing, back then.  ...

I agree. Well said.

Quote from: Warthur;861416I chose "not me" because the genuinely interesting stuff coming out of the DIY D&D scene doesn't involve some sort of ideological reversion to the "old school" so much as it does a rich and parallel alternate direction of tabletop RPG evolution. ...

Yes! There is a great bunch of really great games and supplements coming out of the self-described "OSR Movement" but frankly all these great things would stand on their own merits IMHO.

I support creators, so if you're passion is to create stuff for games of bygone eras and that pushes all the right buttons, I say hells ya, do that!

Quote from: Warthur;861437Not half as silly as comparing the OSR to the real Renaissance in the first place.

BURN! I stood back.

I went with reasons because I could give a fuck about clones of D&D.  What I care for are games that modified D&D to make their own games.  Stars Without Number being the best example.

Quote from: Ravenswing;861414The second is that this has anything to do with D&D, really.  D&D isn't the Holy Grail of the nostalgia movement because of any virtues it has.  It's the Holy Grail because it was the game the great majority of the nostalgia buffs were playing, back then.  If Chivalry & Sorcery had been the first RPG out of the gate, that would be the headliner of the OSR.

So how long does it have to go on before it ceases to be a nostalgia movement. The publishers of material for classic D&D edition have been getting accused of this since the first product was released.  Now we are 9 years out from the publication of OSRIC. So what is it going to take before you will realize that just maybe classic editions of D&D are games like chess that while old are enjoyable in their own right.

As for OD&D yes the original books are badly formatted compared to later RPGs. People worked at it and come up with newer versions that are the same game but better formatted.

Quote from: Warthur;861416Now that all the old editions save for OD&D are available legally on PDF (and I'm fairly sure that will change in the not-too-distant future, just as it did for the other books that got a reprint in the run up to 5E), straight retroclones of D&D are a pointless endeavour.

The reason that OSRIC became a full rulebook in its edition was that more than a few people like to use it as the primary reference than the original. The prere-lease and 1st edition were laid out as a publisher's reference only. This was not expected by OSRIC's authors due to availability of print books for AD&D. OD&D was always expensive but AD&D 1st edition books are very common to find.

But due to a combination of people adversion to buying stuff off of ebay and Wizards pulling PDFs all the classic editions of D&D got a straight retro-clone. And those retro-clones developed a fanbase that liked how Stuart Marshall, Dan Proctor, Matt Finch, and others  presented the rules compared to the original.

So what we have now is a mix of fans of the original, and fans of the clones playing the same games.

Now a John Doe authored clone version of B/X D&D  could gain a audience like Dan Proctor's Labyrinth Lord. But I would advise John Doe that not very likely. He would be better off in coming out with a B/X inspired set of rules that heavily reflect how he plays D&D.

Finally having been publishing stuff for a number of years for the OSR there is one remaining compelling reason, availability of the core book for print sales. If you have a line of supplement based on one of the current straight retro-clone (Like I do with the Majestic Wilderlands and Swords & Wizardry). It is a pain if the core book for your stuff can't be easily obtained by a game store.

I have sold a fair amount of print copies to various game stores in my region and been hindered by the availability of Swords & Wizardry. Matt Finch, Frog God Games are great guys but it just don't work for what I do. So I am writing a complete rulebook version of my Majestic Wilderlands. I am not really interested in competing in the RPG system market so I still plan on advertising it on-line as a Swords & Wizardry supplement. But when it comes to hand selling to game stores, I can now say that like any other RPG out there the Majestic Wilderlands comes with all the rules needed to play it.

Quote from: estar;861464As for OD&D yes the original books are badly formatted compared to later RPGs. People worked at it and come up with newer versions that are the same game but better formatted.

Which explains why retro-clones are not a "pointless endeavor," as was asserted earlier. Since playing old school games is not an exercise in recreating the past but in playing a fun game in the present, I'd much rather use a clean and clear presentation of the rules I want to use than a pdf scan of the original, poorly (or at least not quite as cleanly and clearly) formatted version. I'll take Labyrinth Lord over B/X, or Swords and Wizardry over the LBB's, every time.

Mango Chutney for me.

I care not a fuck about the OSR as movement. I do not follow OSR blogs, etc, and don't care about edition wars and gamer fandom flamewars.

I like games and some fun ones have come out of or been inspired by the OSR.

This adds flavor, so mango chutney.

Quote from: estar;861464So how long does it have to go on before it ceases to be a nostalgia movement.

When they stop trying to capitalize on a so called 'playstyle' that didn't actually exist as they would like us to think it did, so that we buy their products.

Quote from: trechriron;861460I support creators, so if you're passion is to create stuff for games of bygone eras and that pushes all the right buttons, I say hells ya, do that!

THIS x 1000!

Trechriron nailed what OSR is about for me. The rest is just noise. But in any endeavor involving human beings, there will be lots of noise and some signal.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861485When they stop trying to capitalize on a so called 'playstyle' that didn't actually exist as they would like us to think it did, so that we buy their products.

"They" sound like terrible people (whoever "they" are).

Quote from: aspiringlich;861475Which explains why retro-clones are not a "pointless endeavor," as was asserted earlier. Since playing old school games is not an exercise in recreating the past but in playing a fun game in the present, I'd much rather use a clean and clear presentation of the rules I want to use than a pdf scan of the original, poorly (or at least not quite as cleanly and clearly) formatted version. I'll take Labyrinth Lord over B/X, or Swords and Wizardry over the LBB's, every time.

+1 The cleaned up versions are NICE.

Quote from: aspiringlich;861490"They" sound like terrible people (whoever "they" are).

Not really, they just have a belief that it's incorrect and the means to make money off of it.  But they do so by capitalizing on a sense of nostalgia.

Quote from: estar;861249I think people forget that the OSR has no defining purpose other than the fact that that a bunch of people found playing, promoting, and publishing for classic editions of D&D is interesting and fun.

Agreed. The whole "OSR Movement" seems to have taken a negative life of its own for some reason, but the basic notion of playing older edition D&D is still alive and well in my household. We play what we like, and I enjoy an old school vibe similar to the way I've played for 40 years.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861485When they stop trying to capitalize on a so called 'playstyle' that didn't actually exist as they would like us to think it did, so that we buy their products.

So what RPGs  labeling themselves as part of the OSR is trying to capitalize on a non-existent playstyle? I see a lot of new presentations a classic edition lot of rule systems based off what a particular author thinks is important like Lamentation of the Flame Princess, and Dungeon Crawl Classic. But not a lot based on the author trying to recreate a playstyle. The closest that I know about are several projects that tried to re-create the rules of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign.

Frankly there is a family of complaints about the OSR that not supported by the work that is labeled OSR. People pro and con about the OSR keep reading more into what it is. The OSR doesn't advocate any existing playstyle or non-existent playstyle. Or advocate anything other than classic editions of D&Ds and similar games are fun and interesting to play.

Anything else is a result of the interest of a particular individual or group. For example the folks on Knights and Knaves who work on OSRIC are focused on AD&D. James Malislewski had opinions that were read widely. Philotomy wrote a series of musings on playing OD&D, I wrote about hexcrawl setting and sandbox campaign, and so on. Zak S wrote a unique view of a city with nifty tools to use to run a campaign. James Raggi combined his love of weird horror with classic D&D mechanics. The only thing common about all of us that we all used a classic edition of D&D as our foundation.

Quote from: estar;861506So what RPGs  labeling themselves as part of the OSR is trying to capitalize on a non-existent playstyle?

Because when you buy their games, they imply that the way they promote was the only way the game was played 'way back then'.  Which is great promotional screed, but inaccurate to say the least.  OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, et al, all operate differently because they make certain assumptions about how the game was played back in the 'olden days'.

Thing is, it wasn't all played like they claim it was, in fact, I'd posit that the way WE play now, and how old Grognards played back then, hasn't actually significantly changed.  It just seems like it, because we got older folks often yelling at everyone else to get off their lawn, metaphorically speaking, rather than actually embracing new things.  Unlike back then, when it was newer, and people wanted to try new things.

Didn't Gronan mention at one point that the reason that the Cleric came into being was because another player made a Vampire, and another wanted to play a Van Helsing type?  I could be mistaken on that.

Quote from: Warthur;861437Not half as silly as comparing the OSR to the real Renaissance in the first place.

This also seems like a really stupid complaint.

I understand people who don't like old-D&D not caring for the OSR. I don't understand people who do buy and use a lot of OSR stuff slagging off the OSR as being all about Internet drama (?!), rather than about the game products they're using!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861508Because when you buy their games, they imply that the way they promote was the only way the game was played 'way back then'.  Which is great promotional screed, but inaccurate to say the least.

Which games are doing that? I haven't noticed.
Again, I never played OD&D in the 'old days' and I'm betting neither did any of the relative youngsters I play DCC and LotFP with. We don't care if the 'Old School Renaissance' is actually 'Old School' or a 'Renaissance', we just like the product coming out of the corners of the hobby that we, rightly or wrongly, associate with the OSR.
I'm not really aware of any 'drama'... except that Tenkar is a bit of a fuck and some people, like Ravenswing, like to complain about it despite claiming no interest in it.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861508Thing is, it wasn't all played like they claim it was, in fact, I'd posit that the way WE play now, and how old Grognards played back then, hasn't actually significantly changed.

It all depends on the "WE" in the equation.

As someone who played with lots of different GMs/DMs during the "way back when", I can 100% confirm there was no definite playstyle embraced by everyone. However, there were common ways of playing and less common.

Making your own world was common.
Detailing it highly was uncommon.
Houserules were common.
"Build mentality" was very uncommon.
Playing modules was common.
Arguing about rules was sadly very common.
Making up your own shit for your group was common.
...which made arguing about rules even weirder.

In my area of the world as a teen (US SF Bay Area), there was LOTS of excitement about new RPGs and trying them out. I understand that wasn't common in other areas where people rarely ventured away from AD&D, but for us, a large part of the hobby was trying out whatever hit the shelves.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861508Because when you buy their games, they imply that the way they promote was the only way the game was played 'way back then'.  Which is great promotional screed, but inaccurate to say the least.  OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, et al, all operate differently because they make certain assumptions about how the game was played back in the 'olden days'.

Thing is, it wasn't all played like they claim it was, in fact, I'd posit that the way WE play now, and how old Grognards played back then, hasn't actually significantly changed.  It just seems like it, because we got older folks often yelling at everyone else to get off their lawn, metaphorically speaking, rather than actually embracing new things.  Unlike back then, when it was newer, and people wanted to try new things.

Didn't Gronan mention at one point that the reason that the Cleric came into being was because another player made a Vampire, and another wanted to play a Van Helsing type?  I could be mistaken on that.

Yet again you refer to this mysterious "they". Who are "they"? Can you give an actual, concrete example of someone whose byline for their OSR product is "This is THE way it was played back in the day"?

Quote from: aspiringlich;861523Yet again you refer to this mysterious "they". Who are "they"? Can you give an actual, concrete example of someone whose byline for their OSR product is "This is THE way it was played back in the day"?

Or even something easier than that.  OSRIC is a free download, so presumably you should be able to point us to examples at no cost and little time to you (since you mentioned OSRIC specifically I'm assuming your examples are at-the-ready).

What parts of OSRIC depart from the text in the AD&D books, and do so in order to get you to play a certain specific way (also, presumably, not described in the AD&D rulebooks)?

Why can't I vote both yes and no and Mango?

Quote from: Spinachcat;861517It all depends on the "WE" in the equation.
In my area of the world as a teen (US SF Bay Area), there was LOTS of excitement about new RPGs and trying them out. For us, a large part of the hobby was trying out whatever hit the shelves.

Same here (Shit town, UK) our group couldn't buy enough boxed sets and rulebooks in the 80's.

Quote from: aspiringlich;861490"They" sound like terrible people (whoever "they" are).

Yes, "they" are.  Now hand him this tinfoil hat.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861508Because when you buy their games, they imply that the way they promote was the only way the game was played 'way back then'.  Which is great promotional screed, but inaccurate to say the least.  OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, et al, all operate differently because they make certain assumptions about how the game was played back in the 'olden days'.

Imply? Do you mean to tell me that you can't point to a specific statement in either Labyrinth Lord or OSRIC or their marketing where they stated that their games was the only way it was played back in the day.

You do realize that OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord are straight clones of AD&D and B/X. The authors of both write how they like the original games and both state that they hope their rules will spark further support. That as far as either goes for personal opinion.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861508Thing is, it wasn't all played like they claim it was, in fact, I'd posit that the way WE play now, and how old Grognards played back then, hasn't actually significantly changed.  It just seems like it, because we got older folks often yelling at everyone else to get off their lawn, metaphorically speaking, rather than actually embracing new things.  Unlike back then, when it was newer, and people wanted to try new things.

The problem is that your point is irrelevant when you can't point to a specific instance of a publisher saying that their game is how it was played back in the day.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861508Didn't Gronan mention at one point that the reason that the Cleric came into being was because another player made a Vampire, and another wanted to play a Van Helsing type?  I could be mistaken on that.

What that has to do with with somebody trying to play, promote, or publish for a specific edition of D&D? It is a interesting factoid however has nothing to do with what you are accusing the OSR of doing.

I make it easy and tell there is definitely one OSR RPG that claims to be a recreation of how it was done back in the day, Dragons at Dawn where the authors attempt to recreate the rules that Dave Arneson used in his Blackmoor campaign.

I will give you another Matt Finch who is the author of Swords and Wizardry has a separate book call an Old School Primer where he goes overboard on the hyperbole in comparing older editions to newer edition. Is in fact a bit insulting. But on the other hand his Zens of old school gaming do really work for some people including myself.

What you fail to realize that whatever the opinions of people who label themselves as part of the OSR are that it is grounded on published rulebooks that can be obtained and examined. Either what you labeling as OSR works with those rules or it doesn't. If it doesn't then it is not going to work for people looking to material to use with classic D&D no matter what label you slap on it.

Quote from: estar;861464games like chess that while old are enjoyable in their own right.

Dude, you don't still play 1E, do you? Chess 17.5E is waay better, and there are feats! :teehee:

Quote from: estar;861464So how long does it have to go on before it ceases to be a nostalgia movement. The publishers of material for classic D&D edition have been getting accused of this since the first product was released.  Now we are 9 years out from the publication of OSRIC. So what is it going to take before you will realize that just maybe classic editions of D&D are games like chess that while old are enjoyable in their own right.

Well, a good start would be the spearcarriers of the "movement" admitting just that.

The very fact that this thread discusses the "OSR," by acronym, and a "movement" suggests that they haven't.  Hell, man, you said it yourself, pretty eloquently.  Why are you asking me what it'll take for those who claim this to be some manner of "movement" to stop?  I'm no more a soothsayer than you are.  Beyond "when everyone who played RPGs in the 1970s croaks," I got nothing.

Quote from: Vile;861560Dude, you don't still play 1E, do you? Chess 17.5E is waay better, and there are feats! :teehee:

Looking at Loka I think I would have to disagree with you.

My point is:  It's all D&D, play what you like, there's nothing wrong with preferring the little brown books, the Red Box, White Box, or whatever edition/spinoffs.

I have my favourites, and I have no right to impose that my version is best.  It's best FOR ME and my friends, what's BEST for YOU?  Only YOU can answer that.

Quote from: Ravenswing;861561Well, a good start would be the spearcarriers of the "movement" admitting just that.

The very fact that this thread discusses the "OSR," by acronym, and a "movement" suggests that they haven't.  Hell, man, you said it yourself, pretty eloquently.  Why are you asking me what it'll take for those who claim this to be some manner of "movement" to stop?  I'm no more a soothsayer than you are.  Beyond "when everyone who played RPGs in the 1970s croaks," I got nothing.

Who are the spearcarriers?  I ask this, because it isn't as if this stuff hasn't been said.   So, are the people saying it not who you consider spearcarriers?

People say this as if it isn't out there...it's out there.  Is it because a specific person hasn't said it to you personally?  Is it because extending the concept of Snopes to using Google yourself is too much work?  I know this sounds snarky as fuck in a way that I don't really intend, but as often as people say the same untruths over and over it raises incredulity after a while.

Look, I don't want to play "Bring me a goddamn rock", so if you are open to having your point of view modified, let me know what will modify it, who needs to say it, what it has to look like.  

People like Christopher Brady say the same crap over and over: multiple times he's been asked to take the faceless "They" and put a name on it, or point out the source of his immeasurable butt hurt.  Each time he chooses to duck the question, because he would rather hang himself on his cross than come down from it.  And then when the next thread pops up he says the same bullshit again, hoping that he can get his narrative out there one more time.  Because, if you say something often enough, it becomes the conventional wisdom.  Pundit himself does the same thing with his utterly false clonemaniacs screed, because he knows his megaphone is loud and it isn't the truth that serves his purposes.

It's tiring.

So I've spent a little of my time pulling up quotes and posts. Real things said by real people with names and stuff.  Again, if these aren't the people you consider big enough names, I'll look up whoever you propose instead.  But these are the people I consider influential.  The excerpts address nostalgia, and also Christopher Brady's assertions of the intent behind retroclones, as well as the idea that the games assume some universal playstyle was used by every person to pick up a die for the first 10 years after Chainmail was published.

(all bold emphases supplied)

Quote from: Labyrinth Lord ForewordThe goal of Labyrinth Lord and other retro-clone systems is to make rules currently available, using a common reference, for third-party publishers to create gaming material that is not only compatible with the particular retro-clone system, but also with the system which it seeks to emulate. By doing this we hope to help build a market for games that have otherwise been allowed to fade into the past...

...Old-school gaming isn't just about nostalgia. We go back to these game rules not just because they might be easier to learn or play compared to their modern derivatives, but also because there is a fresh element to the game.

Quote from: OSRIC PreambleI think it’s fair to say that Matt wrote these words in fear and hope—fear that the document might not be well-received by the gaming public, balanced by the hope that we would achieve what we always intended: a revival of First Edition in print

Quote from: OSRIC Introduction and Purpose...The book is intended to reproduce underlying rules used in the late 1970s to early 1980s,...

...The reason for going back to square one and restating the underlying rules is simple It allows old school publishers (both commercial and fans) to reference the rules set forth in this document without making reference to any protected trademark...By using this document in tandem with the Open Game License (“OGL”) of WOTC, a publisher should be able to create products for old-school fantasy gaming and clearly refer to this particular rule set without violating the terms of the OGL

...Thus, in many ways, this entire book is nothing more than a tool for old-school writers

Quote from: Swords and Wizardry Foreword...What you hold in your hand are guidelines; this is one set of “rules” that has an internal integrity that makes it work. Is it the only way to play? Certainly not...

Quote from: Swords and Wizardry Complete Introduction...It is not an exact reproduction, mainly for legal reasons; but in the 1970s, no group of gamers played precisely the same version of the Original Game anyway.

Quote from: Swords and Wizardry Core Introduction...Unfortunately, the original rules are no longer in print, even in electronic format. The books themselves are becoming more expensive by the day, since they are now collector items. Indeed, there is a very good chance that the original game could, effectively, disappear.

That’s why this game is published.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1609334#p1609334

Quote from: PapersAndPaychecksA retro-clone is exactly what (OSRIC) is --- most people seem to view it as the original retro-clone, although that subject isn't uncontroversial.  (What was the first true retro-clone? (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=69236))

It's not a for-profit alternative-to-the-original retro-clone like LOTFP, DCCRPG, C&C, etc.  It's meant as a gateway into the game Gary Gygax wrote, and as a source of cheap table-copies of the rules so you don't have to risk getting beer spilt on your precious 1e books.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=656442#p656442

Quote from: MythmereI just read through the pdf of OSRIC 2.0, and it's absolutely a masterpiece.  The layout, in particular, with the color art, is both new and retro at the same time, which is quite an accomplishment.  I think this may represent a real watershed, for the 1e community at least, in terms of putting forth - for new gamers - a physical, tangible representation of the game, that can be placed alongside the modern products as an example of what the current "old-style" gaming is all about.  Instead of looking like it's just about using old books salvaged from an attic - no matter how good those books are - OSRIC's physical presentation, quality, and rejuvenated artistic power present what can be perceived as a true, viable alternative to the rules-heavy new style of gaming.

I'm not marking this OT or putting it into the "Simulacrum Games" forum because as far as I'm concerned, OSRIC is now the de facto flagship of old-style free-form gaming in the wider world outside our niche.  Whether one likes it or not, Stuart has expanded the boundaries of the free-style gaming that defines our niche, and put it out there as an alternative to the mainstream.  OSRIC gives the outside gaming world a benchmark by which we'll be measured by outsiders, and that's good - because it goes a long way toward blowing apart the old "nostalgia" chestnut that's so often used to dismiss free-style gaming.

The renaissance in old-style gaming that began with Dragonsfoot/Footprints, developed further with the use of the OGL by C&C and BFRPG, then morphed into the retro-cloning strategy - is now in full swing with a true clone that can penetrate the mainstream and reintroduce a new set of gamers to the old methods of gaming.

Kudos to Stuart, and I say this from the perspective of the initial author whose work on OSRIC has very clearly been transformed into something utterly beyond the original, uneven draft I gave to Stuart years ago.  It's been turned from a sketch into a Rembrandt.

Whether one likes OSRIC, or the concept of OSRIC, or the strategy it uses to bring 1e into the mainstream, the 2.0 edition represents a fundamental potential for the resurgence of our style of gaming.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=344251#p344251

Quote from: MythmereI prefer monochrome, but this is one of the areas in which my preference is purely based on nostalgia.  In general, I prefer the old games because they're better and different from the newer stuff, not because of nostalgia.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=318578#p318578

Quote from: MythmereThe rule for MOST randomly affected events in AD&D is that there is no rule, no elegant single-application probability curve.  The whole thing that makes AD&D different from modern games is that the DM, rather than the rules, is the arbiter of probability.  

IMO this is superior to modern games, not because of nostalgia, but for side-by-side results, and my preference for the way AD&D assigns the probability roll to a person, not a book.  It keeps things fast, unpredictable, and sensible.  The DM can skip a pointless roll based on common sense without blinking an eye.

It's been pointed out that a host of BTB examples are provided for random-influenced events.  One spell rolls under an attribute with a d20.  Another uses 3d6 against the attribute.  There is the bend bars check.  There are saving throws.  There is a flat chance of falling into a pit on a d6; other chances expressed as a flat percentage.

The rule is that the DM decides what fits, based on common sense and game pacing.  That's a different game than one in which there are set rules, and a very different game from one in which there is a single, "elegant" method for many soultions.  The elegant rule, the "universal mechanism" is actually a gaming method that's the exact opposite of what defines the unique character of AD&D.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=280351#p280351

Quote from: Mythmere

Quote from: MrFilthyIkeI'll be the voice of dissent.  I think it has A LOT to do with nostalgia.

I get these great, warm, fuzzy feelings when I read my RC, my Gaz's, my Mentzer and 1e books.

Would I run a game of it nowadays?  Yeah, but probably as a one shot.  Most people around here play, and are famililar with 3e, and run my 3e rules to the wind anyway, so what's really the difference?  At the end of the day, the games are fun and the players happy.

But boy, I do love re-reading my old books. :)

 :D The notable difference, though, is that you - as someone who appreciates the nostalgia value more than the actual game differences - would only play as a one shot.  Those who actually play the old style regularly are the ones who see a distinct difference in the way the rules affect play, and prefer the older rules.  For those who play regularly, I think it's more than nostalgia.  I'm not saying you're right or wrong in your choice of rules, but as a one-shot-only player, you're not precisely in the set of players to whom he's addressing the question.  :D

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1608994#p1608994

Quote from: PapersAndPaychecks

Quote from: SammasterHuh? This is so far beyond making sense to me that I'm having trouble believing I'm even reading it. So in other words, the retro-clones are saying (in essence) "Don't play me, play AD&D. And if there are any disputes between our rules and the AD&D rules, AD&D is right"?

Don't use our product unless you absolutely have to, and the other product is better than ours? I mean, that's like Marketing 101 - Fail.  :(

Hi Sammaster.  My name's Stuart Marshall and I'm personally responsible for OSRIC.

I have said exactly this.

I'm not in the business of marketing.  OSRIC is not commercial enterprise, which is the reason why the product is free.

Hope this is clearer now

All the best

S

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1404875#p1404875

Quote from: PapersAndPaychecksPlease read the free download and make sure OSRIC is what you want before you spend any money on it!  OSRIC is a retro-clone.  It's organised differently, it's written differently and it may not contain your favourite obscure rule from the 1970s.  Things like weapon speed factors and classes like bard or monk are missing.  First Edition is best read in Gary Gygax's original prose.  OSRIC was originally intended as a vehicle for third party publishers to sell adventures and supplements, and that's still its main purpose.  The only reason we offer a printed version is because so many people asked us for it.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1306092#p1306092

Quote from: PapersAndPaychecksDear community

Time for me to put my publisher's hat on and write an open letter to you all!

I've always said that the 1e ruleset is best read in Gary Gygax's original prose.  OSRIC's function is to entice you back into playing 1e and to persuade you to move on to the original books.  If it's an either/or choice between OSRIC and Gary Gygax's writings, go for the latter.

Many people do find OSRIC a helpful resource in play, for various reasons, and that's wonderful.  Please don't buy OSRIC to support me.  The margin on Lulu copies of OSRIC is less than one cent.  It's priced at the absolute minimum in order to make it accessible to people on a budget.  You should only buy it if you want a copy of OSRIC in print.

Now, as far as obnoxious members of "the movement", everyone knows that you can't have more than 5 people in a group without an asshole.  That's usually me, but not always.  But I find it a bit funny that people who don't like the playstyle commonly espoused by many old schoolers get grumpy that it is evangelized.

If you remember much of the 20 years between about 1985 and 2005, that play style was denigrated by just about every influential member of the RPG community with a platform, from the employees of Lake Geneva to the members of the RPGA and lastly to the majority of the gamers in your local friendly gaming store.

If you find it annoying that you can't avoid a now-vocal segment of old schoolers who are enthusiastically evangelizing a style of play that doesn't work for you, while simultaneously telling you that your style of play sucks balls and should go into the dustbin of history, and finding that fewer of the talked-about products contain material that works for how you run your table: congratulations, you should only have to deal with it for about 15 more years to get an idea of how really, really teeth-grinding it can get.

As near as I can tell, most of the people who bitch and moan about evangelizing rank-and-file old schoolers seem to be basically pissed off that we somehow escaped the reservation and are now buying houses in neighborhoods previously redlined to us.  Or that we couldn't bring ourselves to be "better people" in the sense of simultaneously validating play styles that don't work for us in addition to our own.  Well, maybe we should be.  But the last few decades where other play styles held the megaphone and the printing press didn't do much to create an atmosphere of ecumenism, so it is what it is.  

And it probably can improve.  I hope it improves.  But putting words in the other sides' mouths to make them look worse isn't going to contribute to that very well.

:hatsoff:
Well said, EOTB.

Reasons. I don't care about movements, groupings, or packs. I do care about product. I am glad that there's a wealth of product for older editions and games in other genres inspired by older games. I am glad that it, in part, got WotC off their butts to make a more classic friendly new edition and reprint/re-PDF old stuff.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861569My point is:  It's all D&D, play what you like, there's nothing wrong with preferring the little brown books, the Red Box, White Box, or whatever edition/spinoffs.

I have my favourites, and I have no right to impose that my version is best.  It's best FOR ME and my friends, what's BEST for YOU?  Only YOU can answer that.

No, that wasn't your point. Your point was that the OSR is some sort of scam meant to dupe people into buying products on the pretext that they represent the ONE TRUE WAY of playing D&D. It's only after we called you out on your bullshit by demanding evidence that you fall back on this milquetoast "My only point is that everyone has a right to play D&D as they like" tripe. No shit. Name me a single person in the OSR (whatever the hell that even is) who has ever said otherwise.

Excellent reply EoTB!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861569My point is:  It's all D&D, play what you like, there's nothing wrong with preferring the little brown books, the Red Box, White Box, or whatever edition/spinoffs.

I have my favourites, and I have no right to impose that my version is best.  It's best FOR ME and my friends, what's BEST for YOU?  Only YOU can answer that.

No that has not been your point as Aspiring Lich points out. I will add that you are welcome to show how the OSR is doing it wrong by taking advantage of the same freedom that the OSR was built on. Using whatever edition build your own D&D. Get your vision out there for others to enjoy. It obvious you have the passion now put it into action.

I gave the Pundit the same challenge and the result was two good products; Arrows and Albion. Let see what you can come up with.

Quote from: Vile;861560Dude, you don't still play 1E, do you? Chess 17.5E is waay better, and there are feats! :teehee:

HOW HORRIBLEly awesome.

I like converting Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures, does that count?

The chess analogy is nonsense anyway. Chess went through a long and extensive process of variation and refinement and so on before the standardised game was arrived at over the course of a period of time compared to which D&D's lifespan to date is a mere blink of an eye.

Quote from: Warthur;861605The chess analogy is nonsense anyway. Chess went through a long and extensive process of variation and refinement and so on before the standardised game was arrived at over the course of a period of time compared to which D&D's lifespan to date is a mere blink of an eye.

Sigh and exactly how long Chess has been in its present form? Mm will if you look at the rules since 1500 if you look at how competitive chess is played wth timed clocks and the like since 1851.

Either way it been around for centuries and yet where is the crictism that they are playing an led obsolete game and should be playing 3D chess instead.

My using the analogy of playing chess is exactly on point when addressing criticisms that classic D&D is old and obsolete. Again so we are clear presentation of a set of rule can evolve and be improved but the game itself works or doesn't regardless of the increase of diversity in the larger hobby.

Quote from: estar;861606Sigh and exactly how long Chess has been in its present form? Mm will if you look at the rules since 1500 if you look at how competitive chess is played wth timed clocks and the like since 1851.

Funny you should use that analogy; I've used it too to answer the "They haven't come out with a new supplement in two years the game is obsoleeeeeete!!!!" cementheads.

For those of you who don't know, the answer is that the last major rules addition (castling) was over half a thousand years ago, and the recognized rules were finalized about two hundred years ago.

Quote from: EOTB;861580(snip)

(furrows brow)  Dude, for someone talking about others acting like they've got "butt hurt," you're acting like a wounded bear.  Come on: is anyone telling you you're not allowed to play a D&D retroclone if that's what floats your boat?  No.  I'd suggest taking a chill pill.  

I'll bite and check "Me! Me!" because the OSR's put out a ton of stuff I enjoy; got me to reexamine and better enjoy games I've always loved; and I don't really follow the drama. Sure, there are asshats, but aren't they everywhere?

On the other hand, if anyone's got a good mango chutney recipe, I'm listening. Is using green mangoes bullshit or what?

I voted me! because while there are a lot of good things that came out of the OSR, one of the big ones for me, was the re-evaluation of old systems and practices and viewing them in a new light.

Quote from: aspiringlich;861598No, that wasn't your point. Your point was that the OSR is some sort of scam meant to dupe people into buying products on the pretext that they represent the ONE TRUE WAY of playing D&D. It's only after we called you out on your bullshit by demanding evidence that you fall back on this milquetoast "My only point is that everyone has a right to play D&D as they like" tripe. No shit. Name me a single person in the OSR (whatever the hell that even is) who has ever said otherwise.

Scam is a little harsher than I wanted to put it, but the thing is, the moment you label something, anything, you're creating an exclusive thing -whether it's an idea, product, whatever-, you segregate it out by virtue of something.  And when humans segregate, separate and label, we subconsciously create an 'us vs. them' mentality.  In this case it's: Old Scool vs. New School, and people will gather to a side.

The word exclusion means 'to leave out'.  And in this hobby of ours, I personally think that's a bad thing, I'm about inclusion.  I want everyone to have fun gaming, and creating barriers and edition wars is not the way to go about it, in my mind.

And frankly, I'm surprised people haven't noticed that every single blurb that EOTB put for his 'demonstration' that all they ever talk about is how a certain edition is either missing in action, or in Papers and Paychecks for example, claims that AD&D 1e is the 'better' version so on and so forth.  Whether or not these people intended it or not, by calling OSR a 'movement' they're creating division among gamers.

I don't care if they want to recreate an older version of D&D that they had in their mind's vision.  What I do care about is what it's doing to us, as gamers, and it's just doing more edition warring.  We don't need to separate ourselves into little camps.  As someone who's also a video gamer, I see it all the damn time: casuals, hardcore, CoD heads, among others, when really all we're doing is picking a game we like.

Play what you want, none of it's better than the other, except for your tastes.

EoTB said it best, but for the tldr/snark response: If nostalgia alone was enough to please geeks then the Star Wars prequels would've been the best loved films ever

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861639Scam is a little harsher than I wanted to put it, but the thing is, the moment you label something, anything, you're creating an exclusive thing -whether it's an idea, product, whatever-, you segregate it out by virtue of something.  And when humans segregate, separate and label, we subconsciously create an 'us vs. them' mentality.  In this case it's: Old Scool vs. New School, and people will gather to a side.

So, if we happen to like a certain something, all we can refer to is "some edition or other (can't say which) of a well known fantasy game (can't say which)"? But then what of people who don't like "fantasy games"?

QuoteThe word exclusion means 'to leave out'.  And in this hobby of ours, I personally think that's a bad thing, I'm about inclusion.  I want everyone to have fun gaming, and creating barriers and edition wars is not the way to go about it, in my mind.

When you make it eminently clear that you DO NOT WANT to play with us, that you WOULD NOT have fun in our game, just who is 'excluding' whom?

QuoteWhether or not these people intended it or not, by calling OSR a 'movement' they're creating division among gamers.

Baloney. The division WAS already. A "New School" (by whatever name) was claiming that old D&D was shabby and 3e was excellent; and another New School movement was saying that 3e sucked (and old D&D sucked worse) and clamoring for the kind of Something Completely Different they (more or less) got with 4E.

Funny how the big sin is to like the old game rather than joining the packs trying to kill it.

Don't like "edition warring?" The ones you need to convince with your blather are the knuckleheads who keep in the first place churning out one 'edition' after another that is really a whole different game: the guys at Wizards of the Coast.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861497Not really, they just have a belief that it's incorrect and the means to make money off of it.  But they do so by capitalizing on a sense of nostalgia.

When you see them next, give them my best, but remind them that they still owe me $20.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861569My point is:  It's all D&D, play what you like, there's nothing wrong with preferring the little brown books, the Red Box, White Box, or whatever edition/spinoffs.

I have my favourites, and I have no right to impose that my version is best.  It's best FOR ME and my friends, what's BEST for YOU?  Only YOU can answer that.

That is a universally appealing statement that everyone can get behind that is in no way relevant to your previous points about nebulous "they"s.

Quote from: Phillip;861650So, if we happen to like a certain something, all we can refer to is "some edition or other (can't say which) of a well known fantasy game (can't say which)"? But then what of people who don't like "fantasy games"?

If you like OSRIC (and from what I've seen it's a pretty cool little system!) you can say "I like OSRIC." I won't argue or claim it's wrong to.  I'd like to think I'm a little more open minded than that.  It's an ongoing thing.

Quote from: Phillip;861650When you make it eminently clear that you DO NOT WANT to play with us, that you WOULD NOT have fun in our game, just who is 'excluding' whom?

If you want to use the word 'exclusion', I exclude people who are jerks, and jerks come in all editions.  As for those I disagree with?  Well, it's a case by case basis, really.  Some times, I can put my personal bias on certain systems aside, and play, other people, we just won't mix.  But in general, I tend to be willing to play with most people.

I'm willing to game with any system once, more if I like it.  But the system is not to blame here.

Quote from: Phillip;861650Baloney. The division WAS already. A "New School" (by whatever name) was claiming that old D&D was shabby and 3e was excellent; and another New School movement was saying that 3e sucked (and old D&D sucked worse) and clamoring for the kind of Something Completely Different they (more or less) got with 4E.

Funny how the big sin is to like the old game rather than joining the packs trying to kill it.

Don't like "edition warring?" The ones you need to convince with your blather are the knuckleheads who keep in the first place churning out one 'edition' after another that is really a whole different game: the guys at Wizards of the Coast.

Actually the edition warring, which is what this OSR thing is adding to, has been around LONG before 3e.  I've had local players, and friends, claim that they'll never change systems (Red Box, 1e, 2e) because the new one will suck.  Sight unseen, it will automatically suck.  That sort of sentiment has always driven me nuts.  I don't care if you don't like the system, but at least give it a fair shake.

And the fact of the matter is, I'm against Edition Wars.  And the OSR has managed to add another layer on it.  We don't need this label.  The games can stay, I have absolutely nothing against them, nor do I have the right to say that they have no right to exist, even if I did have something against them.

It's the label I'm railing (futilely) against, not the people, nor the products.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an adventure to plan for this Sunday (Oct. 24, 2015.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;861618(furrows brow)  Dude, for someone talking about others acting like they've got "butt hurt," you're acting like a wounded bear.  Come on: is anyone telling you you're not allowed to play a D&D retroclone if that's what floats your boat?  No.  I'd suggest taking a chill pill.  

What does the ability to play a D&D retroclone have to do with anything that I responded too?  And yes, before OSRIC was published that was kind of exactly the point.  To head off any "there's no game police knocking down your door and taking your books" arguments: conceded; no shit.  

But that you would say that is evidence of the success of the methods and arguments used to date.  Prior to "the OSR movement", unless we wanted to remain essentially faceless, silent participants of the hobby; scattered into non-connected groups or segregated onto a couple of places like Dragonsfoot, then largely yes, people were saying that.  TSR editions were "dead games" - you have to know that this point was being thrown around like a frisbee - and absent remaining underground we were all supposed to get on the bus and be satisfied with (at best) games that used unified mechanics to loosely emulate a style.

People wanted more than that.  They wanted games-in-print to counter the "why would you want to play an old dinosaur, out-of-print, unsupported game" argument.  Because that matters.  Not everyone has time to 100% homebrew their own campaigns, so the penetration of the exact game(s) we wish to find existing players for, to bring new players in and grow the base, is going to be magnified or dampened by the commercial availability of product that is precisely intended for that.

Quote from: Christopher BradyThe word exclusion means 'to leave out'. And in this hobby of ours, I personally think that's a bad thing, I'm about inclusion. I want everyone to have fun gaming, and creating barriers and edition wars is not the way to go about it, in my mind.

And frankly, I'm surprised people haven't noticed that every single blurb that EOTB put for his 'demonstration' that all they ever talk about is how a certain edition is either missing in action, or in Papers and Paychecks for example, claims that AD&D 1e is the 'better' version so on and so forth. Whether or not these people intended it or not, by calling OSR a 'movement' they're creating division among gamers.

No, you're not about inclusion.  You're about not having someone exclude you or the way you like to play.  There's a significant difference.  It's the "why can't they be better people and not talk down other games" argument.  You are exceedingly quick to cast old-school advocates in a negative light, one that would make them look bad to readers personally unfamiliar with the population.  

As others noted, the division exists because two (or more) segments of the population use the games for entirely different and non-compatible purposes.  The Venn Diagram is never going to be a monocolored circle, so bemoaning that fact is a straw man argument.  

For people on the other side of the diagram from you, the older rules are objectively better at creating the experience they're looking for.  And they are going to actively recruit by identifying what that experience is, and pointing out how other styles of play fail miserably at producing it.  

There is nothing untoward or malicious about this.  If that message comes to someone to whom it is not suited, then it will pass by to no purpose.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861663And the fact of the matter is, I'm against Edition Wars.  And the OSR has managed to add another layer on it.  We don't need this label.  The games can stay, I have absolutely nothing against them, nor do I have the right to say that they have no right to exist, even if I did have something against them.

It's the label I'm railing (futilely) against, not the people, nor the products.

I disagree.  We absolutely do need the label.  While the online gaming population may or may not need the label (at this point of saturation), the gaming population at large is an iceberg, of whom the majority are not online and have no idea about any of this.  In my personal experience, having the label, and being able to point unconnected gamers to internet resources that cogently express and advertise play styles they though had disappeared as living things in RPG products long ago, has excited them and started them playing again.

The label is used for reasons entirely apart of upsetting the ecumenists.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861663I don't care if you don't like the system, but at least give it a fair shake.

You go right ahead and shake FATAL, and KABAL, and keep working your way through every RPG set ever published until you run out of money or life.

Then you can tell others to do it too -- and you'll still be out of line when you make it a demand.  

It's supposed to be a fun pastime, not a duty. Get a grip, man!

Commercially, the label is a substitute for the trademark ("Dungeons & Dragons") fair use of which (indication of compatibility) is given up as a clause of accepting the OGL.

There are too many different game line names to assume that people are familiar with them all, so an 'umbrella' brand is needed to indicate that the stuff is mutually compatible (about as much as various TSR releases were).

But guess what? Again and again, people start threads on forums asking advice on which "retro-game" to choose. If there were no labels, they would just have to be invented; vocabulary is the raw material of conversation!

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861663Actually the edition warring, which is what this OSR thing is adding to, has been around LONG before 3e.  I've had local players, and friends, claim that they'll never change systems (Red Box, 1e, 2e) because the new one will suck.  Sight unseen, it will automatically suck.  That sort of sentiment has always driven me nuts.  I don't care if you don't like the system, but at least give it a fair shake.

The following is cool:

Bob: I've been playing B/X D&D for a while now, and it's just not doing anything for me. I like the idea of D&D, but that way of playing it seems lacking in a lot of ways.

Sam: Hey, you might check out Pathfinder. My friends and I play it and it's a lot of fun.

The following is not cool:

Mike: I've been playing B/X since the early 80's, and I still love it. I've got all sorts of memorable game sessions I can tell you about, and my current campaign is as fresh and enjoyable as when I first started rolling dice.

Christopher Brady: Have you tried one of the new versions of the game?

Mike: No, I don't see any reason to. B/X works perfectly well for me.

Christopher Brady: But you haven't given them a fair shake! How do you know you won't like those systems?

Mike: Whether or not I might like those systems is irrelevant. The fact is, I really like B/X. It's exactly the game I want to play, so I see no need to try other systems.

Christopher Brady: That sort of sentiment drives me nuts!

Yep, if you are already having fun up to 11 doing what you're doing, then anything that work differently is more likely than not to produce a different style of play.  So why invest time in something else?  

If a game advertises itself as doing "Y" to replace "X", and you like "X", saying "well, that will probably suck, then" is a normal reaction.  

It's not (usually) a value judgement on people who choose to play it.

Quote from: aspiringlich;861672The following is cool:

Bob: I've been playing B/X D&D for a while now, and it's just not doing anything for me. I like the idea of D&D, but that way of playing it seems lacking in a lot of ways.

Sam: Hey, you might check out Pathfinder. My friends and I play it and it's a lot of fun.

The following is not cool:

Mike: I've been playing B/X since the early 80's, and I still love it. I've got all sorts of memorable game sessions I can tell you about, and my current campaign is as fresh and enjoyable as when I first started rolling dice.

Christopher Brady: Have you tried one of the new versions of the game?

Mike: No, I don't see any reason to. B/X works perfectly well for me.

Christopher Brady: But you haven't given them a fair shake! How do you know you won't like those systems?

Mike: Whether or not I might like those systems is irrelevant. The fact is, I really like B/X. It's exactly the game I want to play, so I see no need to try other systems.

Christopher Brady: That sort of sentiment drives me nuts!

Fuckin' Ay.  You have it exactly.

Now, I'll PLAY damn near anything at least once.  But I'm damn picky about what I BUY!

Show us on the doll where the OSR touched you in a bad way.

So we can all line up and do it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
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And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
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And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again....

One interesting thing is that it seems quite few people who enjoy the TSR-era books and OSR descendants have been playing and buying the D&D Fifth Edition. So, WotC is winning back custom it had lost, and to some extent the old-school stuff may also be a gateway for new players -- not just to "old D&D" by another name but to the current edition.

Reading the quotes earlier from Mythmere, and comments from EOTB, makes me realize what a relief, a breath of fresh air, the renaissance can be for people who have for years been caught up in trying to follow "new schools" that don't suit them. I haven't felt that pressure myself, having kept on mainly playing with people who treat the rules in the old "free style".

I do think the heavy-handedness is more from the player culture and that attitude toward the books than from the system designs, though the mechanical heft of the latter certainly is also a factor.

Another thing, depending on ease of conversion, is that OSR scenario material might be good support in an area in which Wizards might not want to invest much.

Quote from: EOTB;861667I disagree.  We absolutely do need the label.  While the online gaming population may or may not need the label (at this point of saturation), the gaming population at large is an iceberg, of whom the majority are not online and have no idea about any of this.  In my personal experience, having the label, and being able to point unconnected gamers to internet resources that cogently express and advertise play styles they though had disappeared as living things in RPG products long ago, has excited them and started them playing again.

The label is used for reasons entirely apart of upsetting the ecumenists.

Yes, this is exactly my experience. The label has given people (of all ages) the confidence to play and run public games of old editions & retro-clones, which they did not have before. Like I said, in 2008 I was running 3e D&D because I did not have the confidence to offer to run Mentzer Classic D&D, I remember "Why would anyone want to run that old stuff?" comments. The OSR changed that. Now I run what I want to run - Classic, 4e, Pathfinder, 5e... and I see other people do the same. I think the OSR has really opened things up.

Quote from: Phillip;861714Another thing, depending on ease of conversion, is that OSR scenario material might be good support in an area in which Wizards might not want to invest much.

Yes, the OSR gives me very useful support in my 5e sandbox game. I also use 3e & Pathfinder stuff in 5e, but OSR like (especially) Dyson's Delves and Liberation of the Demon Slayer tends to be denser in terms of more useful stuff per page.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;861710Show us on the doll where the OSR touched you in a bad way.

  Sure.

  The hostility of Grognardia, and apparently much of the OSR in general, to Dragonlance and I6 Ravenloft--things that really brought me into the hobby (albeit mostly through their spinoffs and ancillary material) and that I have a lot of fondness for, despite admitting their flaws. Closely related to that is the idea that that model of adventure somehow 'ruined' D&D, rather than merely providing a new model of play--at the possibly regrettable expense of other models, true, but that and abuses do not of themselves invalidate the idea.

  The condescension and contempt for other modes of play in Matthew Finch's infamous Primer.

  The repeated hostility of many fans--predating the OSR--to 2nd Edition, another formative influence for me, and the criticism was so focused on the 'lack of flavor' (read: no half-orcs, assassins, demons or devils) that it gives the impression that 'real' or 'Old School' D&D is about the dark, foul, grimy and vile side of the game. This is reinforced by my memories of reading Leiber and Moorcock about 20 years ago, and my more recent exposure to Howard. For an excellent example of this, see the original marketing blurb for Dungeon Crawl Classics--the one that starts "You're not a hero."

Quote from: estar;861606My using the analogy of playing chess is exactly on point when addressing criticisms that classic D&D is old and obsolete. Again so we are clear presentation of a set of rule can evolve and be improved but the game itself works or doesn't regardless of the increase of diversity in the larger hobby.

But to continue the analogy: how many people are playing OSR editions of D&D compared to 3.XE/4E/5E? How many people are playing pre-1500 variations on chess as opposed to the standard game?

D&D as a whole is still going through its years of flux and has yet to produce a standard edition that can stand unaltered like chess has for centuries. Even DIY D&D sees innovation taking place in rules sets like ACKS.

Partitioning D&D into "classic" and non-classic variations and then applying the chess analogy to only one part misses the point that to a large extent the general acceptance of standardised chess rules is about popularity, and specifically popularity and how that factors into finding players who understand the rules the same way as you do. An official chess rules set incorporating those elements generally agreed to be best for the game makes it simple to find other players and to teach the game. A few people can and do play newer or older chess variants, but they are a minority compared to the bulk of players out there. And a few games based on similar principles have achieved a similar level of popularity and standardisation, but they deviate from chess by such a wide margin that it'd take a historian to figure out where the point of divergence came (checkers).

If anything, 5E merits benefitting from the chess analogy more than classic D&D editions do, based on its sales, its extensive organised play network, and the fact that it utterly dominates the conversation (http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php). The OSR isn't the World Chess Federation, it's at best a lobby group that reminds people that some game mechanics and styles of past editions aren't necessarily deserving of consignment to the dustbin of history. You can see their fingerprints on 5E, but you can see all sorts of other influences too.

Applying the chess analogy to the OSR's preferred D&Ds implies that the OSR style is normative and other gaming styles and ideas are mere flashes in the pan with no longevity. It is true that nobody suggests that chess is a dead game because no changes have been made to it for years. But at the same time, plenty of changes have been made to D&D over its lifespan, both officially and unofficially, and indeed one good thing the OSR has done is revive the tradition dating back to the Complete Warlock of publishing wild tinkerings and variants of early D&D.

The best rebuttal to "(D&D edition) is a dead game because nobody produces new stuff for it" isn't "Buh buh buh BUT CHESS!", it's "Bollocks to that, people have continually produced new stuff for old editions of D&D over the years, even during the years when TSR was hostile to the notion. Just because you don't see shiny new products lining the shelves of your FLGS means nothing." You refute the argument by pointing out that it is not and never has been true, not by accepting its premise but saying "but that's a good thing!"

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742Sure.

  The hostility of Grognardia, and apparently much of the OSR in general, to Dragonlance and I6 Ravenloft--things that really brought me into the hobby (albeit mostly through their spinoffs and ancillary material) and that I have a lot of fondness for, despite admitting their flaws. Closely related to that is the idea that that model of adventure somehow 'ruined' D&D, rather than merely providing a new model of play--at the possibly regrettable expense of other models, true, but that and abuses do not of themselves invalidate the idea.

  The condescension and contempt for other modes of play in Matthew Finch's infamous Primer.

  The repeated hostility of many fans--predating the OSR--to 2nd Edition, another formative influence for me, and the criticism was so focused on the 'lack of flavor' (read: no half-orcs, assassins, demons or devils) that it gives the impression that 'real' or 'Old School' D&D is about the dark, foul, grimy and vile side of the game. This is reinforced by my memories of reading Leiber and Moorcock about 20 years ago, and my more recent exposure to Howard. For an excellent example of this, see the original marketing blurb for Dungeon Crawl Classics--the one that starts "You're not a hero."

I think this is all fair enough. If OSR advocates for stuff you dislike and denigrates stuff you do like, it's perfectly reasonable to dislike it. This is not at all like the people who lap up OSR product while denigrating the OSR.

Quote from: S'mon;861744I think this is all fair enough. If OSR advocates for stuff you dislike and denigrates stuff you do like, it's perfectly reasonable to dislike it. This is not at all like the people who lap up OSR product while denigrating the OSR.

  I will admit that I have a handful of OSR items--a few C&C products, mostly, from when I was looking for a good '2E lite', and a lot of the cool stuff off of the Engine of Oracles blog. But I think those are outliers from the small area where the OSR and I do manage to overlap.

Quote from: S'mon;861726Yes, the OSR gives me very useful support in my 5e sandbox game. I also use 3e & Pathfinder stuff in 5e, but OSR like (especially) Dyson's Delves and Liberation of the Demon Slayer tends to be denser in terms of more useful stuff per page.

I personally could go for density on the level of TSR's G1, but I guess there's a sweet spot between that and the stat-block spam I've seen in some 3e products. WotC seems to deliver a lot of padding from my perspective.

Nostalgia sure isn't the good vibe I get from what I've seen of things such as Deep Carbon Observatory. OSR presentation has gone from replicating 1970s visual design to very now and polished. The scenarios themselves seem also to be increasingly in that league.

Currently it seems the OSR especially stands out for darker material, the opposite of what many people associate with the 2E period. The total range of things, though, is impressive.

Like it or not, the flow of scenario material is to RPG system vendors almost like software to computer system vendors. The brain power of a community of talented hobbyists is a pretty powerful "network externality" compared with having just one shop.

That reminds me: What's the 5e licensing situation?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742Sure.

  The hostility of Grognardia, and apparently much of the OSR in general, to Dragonlance and I6 Ravenloft--things that really brought me into the hobby (albeit mostly through their spinoffs and ancillary material) and that I have a lot of fondness for, despite admitting their flaws. Closely related to that is the idea that that model of adventure somehow 'ruined' D&D, rather than merely providing a new model of play--at the possibly regrettable expense of other models, true, but that and abuses do not of themselves invalidate the idea.

  The condescension and contempt for other modes of play in Matthew Finch's infamous Primer.

  The repeated hostility of many fans--predating the OSR--to 2nd Edition, another formative influence for me, and the criticism was so focused on the 'lack of flavor' (read: no half-orcs, assassins, demons or devils) that it gives the impression that 'real' or 'Old School' D&D is about the dark, foul, grimy and vile side of the game. This is reinforced by my memories of reading Leiber and Moorcock about 20 years ago, and my more recent exposure to Howard. For an excellent example of this, see the original marketing blurb for Dungeon Crawl Classics--the one that starts "You're not a hero."

Quite probably all true... I have no knowledge of any of those things.

They are the younger gamers' equivalent of being told that there is no value in playing any older game, and that any newer version must be better simply by being newer.

Both notions are bollocks.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742Sure.

  The hostility of Grognardia, and apparently much of the OSR in general, to Dragonlance and I6 Ravenloft--things that really brought me into the hobby (albeit mostly through their spinoffs and ancillary material) and that I have a lot of fondness for, despite admitting their flaws. Closely related to that is the idea that that model of adventure somehow 'ruined' D&D, rather than merely providing a new model of play--at the possibly regrettable expense of other models, true, but that and abuses do not of themselves invalidate the idea.

  The condescension and contempt for other modes of play in Matthew Finch's infamous Primer.

  The repeated hostility of many fans--predating the OSR--to 2nd Edition, another formative influence for me, and the criticism was so focused on the 'lack of flavor' (read: no half-orcs, assassins, demons or devils) that it gives the impression that 'real' or 'Old School' D&D is about the dark, foul, grimy and vile side of the game. This is reinforced by my memories of reading Leiber and Moorcock about 20 years ago, and my more recent exposure to Howard. For an excellent example of this, see the original marketing blurb for Dungeon Crawl Classics--the one that starts "You're not a hero."

I can dig that, but consider: Lucky for you, the OSR is just a non-organized bunch of hobbyists, not a Hasbro subsidiary.

For 20 or 30 years, the D&D publishing scene has been thoroughly given over to Hickman-esque stuff. From what I see of the official 5e line and of Pathfinder, that continues to predominate.

If even that current "epic heroes" stuff is too dark, there's a big pile of Dungeon magazine.

The OSR sure as heck has no say in what Margaret Weiss or whoever does with Dragonlance.

I've said this before; I don't know which "side" started with "your game is WRONG" rather than "I like something different," but Pandora's box cannot be closed.

Quote from: Phillip;861763That reminds me: What's the 5e licensing situation?

'Benign neglect' seems to be the description of the moment. Since ENWorld has an e-magazine for it and Troll Lord Games has just released a conversion of one of their adventures, I expect that will continue unless someone really crosses the line.

From what I've noticed, it's inspired a lot of people to play and create, so the OSR has been worth it, jerks included. A few jerks will always be around no matter what anyway.

Quote from: Phillip;861767For 20 or 30 years, the D&D publishing scene has been thoroughly given over to Hickman-esque stuff. From what I see of the official 5e line and of Pathfinder, that continues to predominate.

  Sort of in-between, from my perspective, and more inclined to "D&D for D&D's sake" than I'd like. There are reasons beyond the OSR I don't think I'm really in D&D's target audience.

  Although a) if one counts from Dragonlance, it's been more like 30 years; b) it's swung a bit back and forth during that time. WotC launched a radical reaction against that kind of stuff when they took over, remember--"Back to the Dungeon", "What the @#(&)! is a Baatezu?", and the like.

QuoteThe OSR sure as heck has no say in what Margaret Weiss or whoever does with Dragonlance.

  The OSR, no; WotC, yes. That's one of my few complaints about the varying but almost obsessively conformist ways that WotC has handled D&D since it took over--there's a whole lot of IP for D&D that, due to ther marketing plans, not a lot can be or has been done with in years. But D&DClassics helps alleviate the lack of access to the old, and the benign neglect of hobbyist work means that fans can more or less build on it without too much trouble.

  So as I've said before and will probably say again, let me take 4E, the 2E settings(*) and some odds and ends, and I'll happily leave 'D&D' to the OSR, semi-OSR types like Mearls and Tweet, and Paizo. :)

   *Although Dragonlance itself I've burned out for numerous reasons, of which almost none are shared with either the OSR or broader Dragonlance fandom. I said my major farewell with my Anti-Canon several years ago. :)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861745I will admit that I have a handful of OSR items--a few C&C products, mostly, from when I was looking for a good '2E lite', and a lot of the cool stuff off of the Engine of Oracles blog.

You hypocrite! :D
Naw, it's good - actually I think C&C (a) predates OSR and (b) has more of a 2e AD&D feel, so not surprising you might like it better than the hardcore OD&Dist OSR stuff.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861772'Benign neglect' seems to be the description of the moment. Since ENWorld has an e-magazine for it and Troll Lord Games has just released a conversion of one of their adventures, I expect that will continue unless someone really crosses the line.

People are mostly using the OGL and the d20 SRD, or at least avoiding use of WoTC Trademarks. While you can legally use other peoples' TMs to indicate compatibility, most publishers are scared of a C&D, so just put "compatible with 5th edition" or similar.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742The condescension and contempt for other modes of play in Matthew Finch's infamous Primer.

While the other two points are fair enough, excepting in that I see no reason why you would expect a group who prefers older games to say nice things about newer games, this point is one I have heard a lot but simply don't see at all. Every explanation of how the Primer is hostile to different styles of play always comes down to the person either ignoring what the Primer specifically says or reading something into it that isn't there.

Voted not me, more due to my early days of RPing was BRP and not D&D. The whole D&D System and I do not click and it is independent on edition it seems. So I cannot be excited or care much about OSR.

Quote from: Phillip;861763That reminds me: What's the 5e licensing situation?

According to Enworld, Mearls has stated that there will be a third party license "soon".

In the meantime people are using the terms from the d20 SRD to replicate 5e stats.

This the Enworld article on the topic.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2967-What-s-All-This-About-Third-Party-5E-Stuff#.Vi0x236rRhE

I would say it is mostly accurate. I would add that from what we know of the genesis of 4e there are probably factions within Wizards that are hostile to any open license.

But then there are no translations of D&D 5e so it could something unique to the present day going on. Perhaps a lack of resources and manpower because they are not hitting a certain threshold of sales in absolute terms.

Anyway the cat out of the back for any game that remotely close to the d20 SRD which 5e is.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861775Sort of in-between, from my perspective ...

  ... it's swung a bit back and forth during that time. WotC launched a radical reaction against that kind of stuff when they took over, remember--"Back to the Dungeon" ... and the like...

... So as I've said before and will probably say again, let me take 4E, the 2E settings(*) and some odds and ends...

The OSR, as the first fruits of a renaissance in hobbyist initiative, may be a rising tide that lifts the boats of a "middle school" resurgence as well.

If it is, we can expect the same accusations of "just nostalgia," exclusiveness, ideological rigidity, etc., to get levied at folks of all ages who just happen to enjoy the style of game that might be said to have had a golden age in the 1980s and 1990s. It seems more immediately than "old school" to be what the Forge crowd was in reaction against.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742Sure.

  The hostility of Grognardia, and apparently much of the OSR in general, to Dragonlance and I6 Ravenloft--things that really brought me into the hobby (albeit mostly through their spinoffs and ancillary material) and that I have a lot of fondness for, despite admitting their flaws. Closely related to that is the idea that that model of adventure somehow 'ruined' D&D, rather than merely providing a new model of play--at the possibly regrettable expense of other models, true, but that and abuses do not of themselves invalidate the idea.

And yet I rarely see people defend the Dragonlance modules as adventures. It's mostly about the spin off material. Which I did read and enjoy as well.
Even as a "new mode of play", I think the DL modules could have done a much better job of it. I can almost forgive them for being as railroady as the old modules were rudderless. (I just re-read Bone Hill, and goddamn that adventure is pointless.) But Weiss and Hickman seemed to want a very specific mode of play, and a tut-tutting of anyone who didn't "get" the story.

QuoteThe repeated hostility of many fans--predating the OSR--to 2nd Edition, another formative influence for me, and the criticism was so focused on the 'lack of flavor' (read: no half-orcs, assassins, demons or devils) that it gives the impression that 'real' or 'Old School' D&D is about the dark, foul, grimy and vile side of the game. This is reinforced by my memories of reading Leiber and Moorcock about 20 years ago, and my more recent exposure to Howard. For an excellent example of this, see the original marketing blurb for Dungeon Crawl Classics--the one that starts "You're not a hero."

I think in the absence of agency, a lot of players will resort to being jerks in reaction.

https://youtu.be/AP2FfsV1x4Q

Quote from: Warthur;861743But to continue the analogy: how many people are playing OSR editions of D&D compared to 3.XE/4E/5E? How many people are playing pre-1500 variations on chess as opposed to the standard game?

What do absolute numbers have to do with anything? So you are saying the most popular variant of a game should not be mocked for being obsolete regardless of age?

Quote from: Warthur;861743D&D as a whole is still going through its years of flux and has yet to produce a standard edition that can stand unaltered like chess has for centuries. Even DIY D&D sees innovation taking place in rules sets like ACKS.

My point is that games are games and don't go obsolete. You are saying my analogy of chess is false for a bunch of reasons that has noting to do with my point. I use chess because it a good example where a game developed several centuries still is found to be fun and enjoyable by people today.

It not about popularity or which version of D&D gets to be called the standard. It about addressing people who (holding up the three brown booklets) can't figure out what fun about that game and claim because it is old it is no good. When people criticize OD&D there are two main complaints; it is poor written and explained, and that it is old and RPGs have evolved and left it behind.

The first point in my opinion is valid, as much of a seminal work OD&D was we learned how to present RPGs better. However the second point is wrong. Even presented with a clearly written version like Delving Deeper, or S&W White Box, those who are critics still persist in claiming OD&D is obsolete. Claiming that it is missing important elements of modern RPGs. Yet many of these critics also fawn over games with lite mechanics like Fate that have as much or fewer mechanics than OD&D.

Quote from: Warthur;861743Partitioning D&D into "classic" and non-classic variations and then applying the chess analogy to only one part misses the point that to a large extent the general acceptance of standardised chess rules is about popularity, and specifically popularity and how that factors into finding players who understand the rules the same way as you do.

Yes modern chess is popular and that is a factor why the rules developed in the 16th century persist to this day. However the thing is that Intellectual Property law never applied to chess' development. There was never a commercial interest with SOLE CONTROL creating variants just to get more sales.  Instead it was a mass of people who voted by what they chose to play that caused modern chess to persist over its variants.

However even with this freedom people in the 18th, 19th, 20th and now the 21st chose to play chess rather to seek something different using the general mechanics of chess.

Now thanks to the OGL D&D has the same chance of developing in the same way. I don't think it is likely. Chess is a game focused on the limited goal of forcing a checkmate with a certain number and type of pieces. While RPGs are pen & paper virtual realities with the potential of presenting anything from real life and fiction. Campaigns often benefit from mechanics tailored to their situation.

But you point has nothing to do with my point that OD&D is not obsolete because of the fact it was published in 1974.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742The repeated hostility of many fans--predating the OSR--to 2nd Edition, another formative influence for me

Since you admit that it predates the OSR, then how is this evidence of how the OSR touched you the wrong way? In fact, 2E hatred is completely orthogonal to the OSR. There's a lively 2E subforum on Dragonsfoot that actually has more posts than the Classic D&D forum (even though the latter combines three different editions: OD&D, B/X, and BECMI).

Quote from: S'mon;861777You hypocrite! :D
Naw, it's good - actually I think C&C (a) predates OSR and (b) has more of a 2e AD&D feel, so not surprising you might like it better than the hardcore OD&Dist OSR stuff.

I encountered an astonishing (to one who knew nothing of the background) amount of hostility toward C&C in some quarters when I picked up a copy and mentioned it online. Turned out there was a lot of bitterness among some participants about how that project turned out.

I on the other hand had an initially negative response to Matt Finch's proposal of what became OSRIC. However, that ended up being I think not only a salve to many who resented what Troll Lords had done, but a watershed for people with a wide range of preferences.

Quote from: aspiringlich;861807Since you admit that it predates the OSR, then how is this evidence of how the OSR touched you the wrong way? In fact, 2E hatred is completely orthogonal to the OSR. There's a lively 2E subforum on Dragonsfoot that actually has more views than the Classic D&D forum (even though the latter combines three different editions: OD&D, B/X, and BECMI).

Call it ' sizeable overlap'. And I admit, these may not be perfectly rational or well-founded reasons. They do at least seem to have cooled down the thread a bit, though. :)

Quote from: TristramEvans;861797While the other two points are fair enough, excepting in that I see no reason why you would expect a group who prefers older games to say nice things about newer games, this point is one I have heard a lot but simply don't see at all. Every explanation of how the Primer is hostile to different styles of play always comes down to the person either ignoring what the Primer specifically says or reading something into it that isn't there.

As I recall, it expresses a very strong reaction against slavish devotion to printed rules. That phenomenon is almost off the radar screen of my own play experience, but I can see how many people could be quite steeped in it -- some much more contentedly than Mr. Finch was.

There are those who seem utterly baffled by the proposition that the 'rules' are not really rules, which apparently seems to them a threatening nihilism. It's a fairly common human nature that treats what is not understood as by default dangerous.

Most of the time when people have a hostile reaction to the primer, they are upset that the newer-style game is presented as such a boring thing.  

Matt tried to head off this reaction with the following disclaimer, but it wasn't enough for many (bolding supplied):

QuoteNote: The modern-style GM in these examples is a pretty boring guy when it comes to adding flavor into his game. This isn't done to make modern-style gaming look bad: we assume most people reading this booklet regularly play modern-style games and know that they aren't this boring. It's done to highlight when and how rules are used in modern gaming, as opposed to when and how they aren't used in oldstyle gaming. So the modern-style GM talks his way through all the rules he's using, which isn't how a good modern-style GM usually runs his game.

Matt has given a follow-up to these thoughts on Dragonsfoot, when another poster also said he disliked the primer for its perceived hostility to more modern games (bolding in original):

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1576707#p1576707

Quote from: MythmereFor those like Sauna who probably know me as mythmere, I'm also Matt Finch.

I post, from time to time, that the Primer was a response to comments on ENWorld that people had tried playing OD&D but it was "incomplete" and they needed to "use the 3e rules to fill in the gaps." It was never supposed to fully define "old school," which was at that time still a derogatory term being used by many ENworld posters.  It's about how to give OD&D a fair test drive, on its own terms, if you've never played a system before 3e, and you're trying to check out this "old school" thing without the benefit of one of us old fogeys at the gaming table with you.

For someone who learned to play using the 3e rules, when using a simpler ruleset, it appears to them that the simplicity of the OD&D rules is actually the absence of required rules. It is really hard to "un-think" rules. I continue to hold that playing using the OD&D rules, using the premise that these rules are intended to be fully complete in the same way the 3e manuals tried to be complete, will produce a pathetic gaming experience and the assumption that the rules are simply incomplete on all kinds of levels. Note that I'm talking OD&D, not AD&D. The 3e-to-AD&D jump is harder to explain, and I didn't try to. I don't think the person who quoted me in the earlier thread quite realized I was talking about something as narrow as I was. I wasn't insulting 3e, I wasn't insulting gaming that uses complex rules. I was trying to express that you have to judge a system on its own merits; it can be very difficult to step from complex-to-simple rules when you're trying to do it just by printing out the simpler rule-set, and playing it with the memory of the "fully-resolved-as-rules" version still operating in your head. There is a qualitative step, not just a quantitative one.

That said, I don't want to namby-pamby it, I definitely prefer OD&D (and Swords & Wizardry) and AD&D over third edition. It's a subjective preference, though, and although it does leak out in the Primer, the purpose of the Primer wasn't to make that argument. The purpose of the Primer was to get people to try out OD&D with a fair test, not a test based on the assumption that OD&D was written with the same design objectives as 3e.

Some years ago, before WotC released PDFs of the OD&D booklets, some folks online expressed interest in the differences from BX (the Moldvay, Marsh & Cook edition).

In my view, the 'mechanical' differences are not a big deal, and if BX does not convey the essential ideas clearly enough then the "little brown books" are likely to be only more confusing. For practical purposes of playing a game, I can't see paying collector's-item prices.

All the TSR editions, though, were increasingly hard to come by even if not terribly expensive when located for sale. Even Internet mail-order service is to my mind a long way from being able to stop by a local store and walk out with the book.

There are cultural values beyond the algorithms, ways in which a retro-clone is not an adequate substitute for the original writers' voices. However, the clones and spin-offs serve much wider interests very well. Unlike for instance UNIX, the continued ready availability of which was not really in danger without GNU-Linux, old D&D was in a perilous situation.

The OSR thus (with the generous assistance of the OGL) provided, and continues to provide, a service not only to old timers but also to presently new and future generations.

There's something aesthetic about the OSR, and something substantial about it.  Aesthetically it likes the Weird Tales vibe, where anything from speculative fiction can go in ---- compared to post-2e D&D it's more comfortable with horror elements (Lovecraftian for mainstream OSR, splatter for the Rafael Chandler/LOTFP subgroup), sci-fi or sword-and-planet elements, etc. ---- and it has noticeably different art styles with lower production values.  I once semi-jokingly defined the OSR as "the set of people who like Erol Otus artwork", on the grounds that this is pretty much the only thing that we all agree on.

Which takes me onto the substance.  The OSR isn't a movement towards anything, actually ---- it's certainly not a movement back towards the game Gary Gygax wrote.  Because we don't need to move back towards it; the majority of us never stopped playing, or not for very long, so for most there's no actual direction of travel there.  The OSR a reaction against something ---- actually a reaction against centralised control of the right to print/publish material you could use with your old school D&D game.  There may never have been any such centralised control in reality, but people thought there was and the perception was stifling.  Matt Finch's genius was to show one route to let anyone write old school material.  That genie can't be put back in the bottle now.  For good or for ill, anyone can publish whatever they like and a lot of people are.  Some do it better than others...

I'm definitely glad people are making new material for old games (or clones of or variations of old games), especially adventures, because some of it's really good and I don't always have time to make it all up on my own (some of you do - great!). That's the extent of my interest in the OSR.

So, the OSR is porn?

Almost everybody's enjoying it, but nobody wants to be associated with it!

OSR? Bah humbug! Grumble, grumble, grumble. Hey, is that a new module by that hot author? Gonna take it home to "read" it in the bathroom!

:)

Quote from: estar;861803The first point in my opinion is valid, as much of a seminal work OD&D was we learned how to present RPGs better. However the second point is wrong. Even presented with a clearly written version like Delving Deeper, or S&W White Box, those who are critics still persist in claiming OD&D is obsolete. Claiming that it is missing important elements of modern RPGs. Yet many of these critics also fawn over games with lite mechanics like Fate that have as much or fewer mechanics than OD&D.

Counterpoint: Delving Deeper or S&W or any other retroclone of OD&D inevitably end up doing a certain amount of interpretation and filling in of the gaps in the original presentation. (Indeed, B/X is largely Moldvay and Cook's exegesis of OD&D plus a few supplements, and AD&D 1E is Gygax's exegesis of OD&D plus substantially more supplements.) They are written with the benefit of hindsight, and consequently it would be entirely feasible for someone to say that OD&D is obsolete or not functional as written but S&W White Box is fine. In fact, they could argue that OD&D is rendered obsolete by the existence of S&W White Box, because the better explanation provided there means that only a masochist need refer to the original booklets.

I would not agree with them, mind, because I actually take the opposite position: I say that performing the work of exegesis is actually integral to the experience of OD&D itself, and perhaps one of the more interesting reasons to go back and replay it rather than playing one of the subsequent interpretations of it. Taking something that pretty much demands a little house-ruling and effort to fill in the gaps and make it purr and making your own decisions about how to complete it is interesting in its own right. But this would be true of such a toolkit whether it was written in 1974 or 2015. (Indeed, FUDGE is another example of an incomplete game - indeed, it's deliberately even more incomplete and requires more work to take the basic principles of FUDGE and turn it around into a fully-featured game for your campaign.)

Quote from: Warthur;861838Counterpoint: Delving Deeper or S&W or any other retroclone of OD&D inevitably end up doing a certain amount of interpretation and filling in of the gaps in the original presentation.

This is a known issue and explained in White Box and Delving Deeper that they are both interpretation of OD&D by the author. It the nature of the OD&D rules. But thanks to the internet, talking to the original gamers, and the work done by guys like Jon Peterson we have an idea of what Gygax and Arneson were going for. So while there still a process of interpretation in making a OD&D retro-clone we have an idea of where in the field the ball is suppose to land.

My view is that never going to be a definitive OD&D interpretation because first and foremost it was tool to help a referee run a tabletop RPG campaign. The point of the game was to run the campaign not the rules themselves. Everybody is going to run their campaigns differently hence OD&D is never going to be the same between two different campaigns.

I realized this when I noticed that in both in the case of Blackmoor and Greyhawk the campaign was first then the rules came afterwards. Note I am not saying there were no rules at the start of the campaign only that the rules were treated as tools and as a consequence were changed on an ongoing basis to better suit the game that Gygax and Arneson were running.  

Quote from: Warthur;861838They are written with the benefit of hindsight, and consequently it would be entirely feasible for someone to say that OD&D is obsolete or not functional as written but S&W White Box is fine. In fact, they could argue that OD&D is rendered obsolete by the existence of S&W White Box, because the better explanation provided there means that only a masochist need refer to the original booklets.

I would add that the major flaw of OD&D is that Gygax didn't explain enough about how he ran campaigns. Not so much the rules but why rules were created and changed in the first place. But then it was a first of its kind product so it understandable.

Quote from: Warthur;861838I would not agree with them, mind, because I actually take the opposite position: I say that performing the work of exegesis is actually integral to the experience of OD&D itself, and perhaps one of the more interesting reasons to go back and replay it rather than playing one of the subsequent interpretations of it.

Taking something that pretty much demands a little house-ruling and effort to fill in the gaps and make it purr and making your own decisions about how to complete it is interesting in its own right.

Well the thing is that I don't OD&D in its original form explained that aspect well enough. The experience of the public then and even now is that a game comes with rules that are hard and fast. But because of the scope of RPG campaigns as pen & paper virtual realities that neither feasible or desirable.

Compounding this issue is that people have different tolerances as to what they want to be creative about. Able, Baker, and Charlie may all like to play and referee OD&D but Able may wish for a version with many of the vague areas with firm interpretations.

What this means from my viewpoint that diversity of worked examples/interpretations is good particularly for a RPG like OD&D that function more as toolkit. The fact that much of OD&D is under the OGL ensures that diversity. To me this ensures that somewhere, sometime, there is a version of OD&D  that a interested gamer will find suited for him.

Quote from: Warthur;861838I say that performing the work of exegesis is actually integral to the experience of OD&D itself, and perhaps one of the more interesting reasons to go back and replay it rather than playing one of the subsequent interpretations of it.

I think I know what you mean (and assuming we're on the same page, I agree with your assessment), but please explain your thoughts and your take on "performing the work of exegesis."

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;861742The hostility of Grognardia, and apparently much of the OSR in general, to Dragonlance "

Quote from: grognardiaHow's that for hyperbole? And it is hyperbole. Dragonlance didn't ruin everything, but it did exert a baleful influence over the development not just of D&D but also roleplaying in general. In part, that's because it was such a brilliant idea and succeeded so well at its intended goals as an early foray into the creation of a "multimedia" campaign for an RPG. They didn't call it such back in the day, as the term hadn't been invented so far as I know, but that's what it was.

Yeah, thats some overwhelming hostility...

I think one of the big sources of enthusiasm for the OSR that often gets overlooked is: "wait, wait, so THAT'S how some people played before I started playing? That sounds really fun. More fun than all of the stupid middle-school stuff I did when I was a dumb middle schooler reading articles in the Dragon magazine about how random encounters were a waste of time because they distracted players from the plot."

A lot of it isn't people being nostalgic it's about people who have been using a camera as a hammer for years before giving up in disgust to buy a proper sledgehammer finally figuring out how to take photos with the damn thing.

I kind of like a lot of the material written for older editions of D&D, but I'm ambivalent or hostile toward many of the people who, in the past couple of years, have decided they are card-carrying OSR members, or even worse 'OSR insiders'. The OSR people I really like are typically too busy writing and creating to spend hours a day on a forum arguing, calling people swine, telling random strangers to fellate them or making lists of people they don't like. Life's too short to associate with those assholes.

Count me as not caring about the OSR "movement". My first foray into D&D was AD&D 2e in '97 and my 1st level Cavalier died about 5 min after I spent the previous 45 min going through the character creation process. After learning the rules and all the nuisances of the system and the DM's particulars I found myself not enjoying it at all. It was nothing like the Baldurs Gate experience they assured me it would be.

So after I played through 3.x and 4e and 5e plus a small sampling of other systems I downloaded Swords and Wizards (I believe it was called) and a few other OSR-style games and I still didn't like it. I realized then that it was less about the specific system and more about how one approaches the game from a fundamental perspective. This also helped me realize that one can generally achieve the same thing and not be system a specific.

But hey, play what makes you happy.

Quote from: Kellri;861887I kind of like a lot of the material written for older editions of D&D, but I'm ambivalent or hostile toward many of the people who, in the past couple of years, have decided they are card-carrying OSR members, or even worse 'OSR insiders'. The OSR people I really like are typically too busy writing and creating to spend hours a day on a forum arguing, calling people swine, telling random strangers to fellate them or making lists of people they don't like. Life's too short to associate with those assholes.

What's up with the whole "Swine" thing anyway? I've been posting here for over a year and this term comes up every now and then but often used in a way that assumes the reader knows who "they" are. For a while I assumed it only related to the whole GamerGate stuff but apparently not.

Quote from: Spinachcat;861836So, the OSR is porn?

Almost everybody's enjoying it, but nobody wants to be associated with it!

OSR? Bah humbug! Grumble, grumble, grumble. Hey, is that a new module by that hot author? Gonna take it home to "read" it in the bathroom!

:)

Ha! To be honest, I have no issues saying I use "OSR" material in my gaming group. I just don't have much interest in talking OSR "politics" with people online. I don't think there's any hypocrisy there.

Quote from: Batman;861890What's up with the whole "Swine" thing anyway? I've been posting here for over a year and this term comes up every now and then but often used in a way that assumes the reader knows who "they" are. For a while I assumed it only related to the whole GamerGate stuff but apparently not.

The term "Swine" is the Pundit's generic term of derision for those who have tastes in RPGs (or what RPGPundit would call Story Games, as opposed to "real RPGs") orthogonal to his. It's rather liberally applied, but in it's tightest sense would seem to refer to the authors and devotees of indie RPGs like Maid, Poison'd, Apocalypse World, and other RPGs heavy on narrative control.

Quote from: Bobloblah;861909The term "Swine" is the Pundit's generic term of derision for those who have tastes in RPGs (or what RPGPundit would call Story Games, as opposed to "real RPGs") orthogonal to his...

More accurately it's a term for game designers and supporters of the now defunct Forge site and sensibilities - Story Now or Story Games. A group of people who were not content inventing a new kind of gaming but instead insisted everyone was "doing it wrong" was "brain damaged" and that the industry and hobby needed to change to "get to the real roleplaying which is focused on creating stories".

It was a shitty disingenuous approach. Some (like myself) were sucked in, tricked and then spent a couple years repairing the damage to our gaming. Tis why I'm here. You may not appreciate the Pundit's style or approach but I'm a living example of the truth he is speaking about these very misguided people.

Now, things have calmed down. People like story games for what they are. A different but related activity that can be fun when you let go of any "this is the only way to roleplay" nonsense. Some of the Forge people have even gone on to create more traditional games like Apocalypse World, where the player procedures are more codified, but essentially function like a "classic" RPG.

Here is the thing. These are particular styles of games (Story Games) that have a different focus. I would argue Apocalypse World is a good ol fashioned RPG with more codified procedures. You're essentially doing the exact same things, only with more guidance. it's like an instruction on how to play a role within a game.

Story Games are not about WHO made them but WHAT they are focused on.

The SWINE are a group of arrogant fucktards who used Story Games as a tool to demonize, discredit and replace a hobby/industry doing just fine without their high-horse academic proselytizing.

It IS a thing. I lived it.

It IS NOT however an excuse for us to turn the tables. Story Gamers are a related hobby to roleplayers. Many people enjoy both activities. I am not about shit on, push out or admonish someone for playing Dogs in the Vineyard. There is enough room in our nerd collective for new ideas, new offshoots and new games. Just be upfront about what were doing so I can decide what's best for me.

Sincerely, with love for all kinds of gamers,

Quote from: trechriron;861927More accurately it's a term for game designers and supporters of the now defunct Forge site and sensibilities - Story Now or Story Games. A group of people who were not content inventing a new kind of gaming but instead insisted everyone was "doing it wrong" was "brain damaged" and that the industry and hobby needed to change to "get to the real roleplaying which is focused on creating stories".

It was a shitty disingenuous approach. Some (like myself) were sucked in, tricked and then spent a couple years repairing the damage to our gaming. Tis why I'm here. You may not appreciate the Pundit's style or approach but I'm a living example of the truth he is speaking about these very misguided people.

Now, things have calmed down. People like story games for what they are. A different but related activity that can be fun when you let go of any "this is the only way to roleplay" nonsense. Some of the Forge people have even gone on to create more traditional games like Apocalypse World, where the player procedures are more codified, but essentially function like a "classic" RPG.

Here is the thing. These are particular styles of games (Story Games) that have a different focus. I would argue Apocalypse World is a good ol fashioned RPG with more codified procedures. You're essentially doing the exact same things, only with more guidance. it's like an instruction on how to play a role within a game.

Story Games are not about WHO made them but WHAT they are focused on.

The SWINE are a group of arrogant fucktards who used Story Games as a tool to demonize, discredit and replace a hobby/industry doing just fine without their high-horse academic proselytizing.

It IS a thing. I lived it.

It IS NOT however an excuse for us to turn the tables. Story Gamers are a related hobby to roleplayers. Many people enjoy both activities. I am not about shit on, push out or admonish someone for playing Dogs in the Vineyard. There is enough room in our nerd collective for new ideas, new offshoots and new games. Just be upfront about what were doing so I can decide what's best for me.

Sincerely, with love for all kinds of gamers,

From what I've seen, you're spot on about where the term originated. However, I don't think I've seen the RPGPundit restrict his usage to anything so specific in a long time. And why would he? He no doubt thinks he has 'won' whatever battle raged between the fringes of two branches of a niche hobby (cue Pundit's predictable and entertaining self-aggrandizement), and has migrated the term's meaning so he can still use it. Whatever. I'm sorry you had a bad ride with the Forge crowd, but I have difficulty caring much about how other people like to play pretend. Were it not for the Pundit, I might never have known (slight exaggeration) they (i.e., the Forge) existed. Considering I've never met a single person offline who's ever heard of them, or who has even played any of their games (including the more 'popular' ones), I consider any claims of their influence to be, shall we say, hyperbolic. I think it's easy to lose sight of the insignificance of the lunatic fringe when their voice is magnified online.

I'll toast your last point about Story Games, though. I have no use for narrative elements in my RPGs, but like I said, I don't really care how other people like to play pretend. If they're having fun, more power to 'em.

I  answered "mango chutney", as that answer is as orthogonal to the question as the OSR is to my gaming. I am happy for the people who are enjoying the plethora of OSR products, and loving the DIY aspect, but I have nothing to do with those products myself, and I dislike and distrust the casting of the OSR as a movement - I inherently distrust all movements, and actively avoid all of them. I ran D&D almost exclusively for 20 years, got burned out on it, and can no longer deal with it. Did the old school thing when it was new school. I can't even run fantasy properly any more. So it's purely personal, not any qualitative judgement on D&D or the wider OSR.

Hey, what do you know? This thread has reminded me why I am non-parpicipatory in Grognardia, The Forge, Dragonsfoot, Tenkar's Tavern and most other RPG sites. I can't be bothered slogging through endless arguments about the "One True Way" of gaming, and discussion that seems more based on hypothetical situations that might possibly crop up if one were playing with asshats than anything based on actual play experiences.

Maybe this is why I don't really give a fuck about OSR vs non-OSR. I play some retrogames, I play some D&D clones, I play some really old games, I play some new games. Role Playing Games. Story Games, Board Games, War-games, whatever they are all just games to me.

I haven't read a single Apocalypse World game. I own one iteration of Fate, and that because I like the subject, not because it's Fate. Never played Numenera, no interest in either 4e or 5e D&D. See no reason to upgrade to 7e CoC when 2,3,4,5,6 still work just fine for me.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=4771

For those wondering about "swine". Note, Pundy includes White Wolf (designers? gamers? some? all?) under the moniker, not just the Forge.

I kinda see Pundit's point but I don't endorse the details. I'm more with Trechriron--live & let live, but spare me the doubletalk.

Quote from: DavetheLost;861949Hey, what do you know? This thread has reminded me why I am non-parpicipatory in Grognardia, The Forge, Dragonsfoot, Tenkar's Tavern and most other RPG sites. I can't be bothered slogging through endless arguments about the "One True Way" of gaming, and discussion that seems more based on hypothetical situations that might possibly crop up if one were playing with asshats than anything based on actual play experiences.

Um, how exactly has THIS thread reminded you of that? I've seen no one championing a "OneTrueWay" nor making any argument that resembles what you're complaining about.

 I don't think you've read this thread at all.

*sigh*

Fine, fine, fine.

I, Opaopajr, profess from the bottom of my heart that the OSR is:
the one true way to roleplay,
more crucial to humanity than The Renaissance of 14th Century Europe,
the culmination of the printed word to be divined by us mere mortals through endless argumentation,
accepts a handful of sanctioned schools of thought on setting variation,
a rejection of all things porcine and power sharing,
and, not to be limited to,
a primer on life and the second coming of divine revelation to a fallen world.

All other non-believers are either living in ignorance and to be pitied and educated, or heretics of the way to be purged from the shining path. For the glorious coronation of the Church of Gygax Triumphant shall be everlasting, raising up from shadow a world crying out for guidance. Amen.



There. You can now cite me as the "they" who bully you unpenitant godless RPG mongrels from the well lit areas of the world, where truth and righteousness reign eternal... (along with Otus' b&w doodles and Jeff Dee's love of bellbottoms and muscular thighs). Carry forth on your impotent tilting against windmills, for you shall never defeat, or expect, the OSR Inquisition.

Love, Your Confessor in Let's Pretend Games,

Opaopajr.

PS: And you're wrong about alignment, too. Just accept it and atone.

Gaze upon the ground upon which I grow my fucks and behold that they are barren.

Quote from: Bobloblah;861909The term "Swine" is the Pundit's generic term of derision for those who have tastes in RPGs (or what RPGPundit would call Story Games, as opposed to "real RPGs") orthogonal to his. It's rather liberally applied, but in it's tightest sense would seem to refer to the authors and devotees of indie RPGs like Maid, Poison'd, Apocalypse World, and other RPGs heavy on narrative control.

I *rarely* agree with the Pundit on anything. But narrative games are not role-playing games. They are improvisational acting exercises. Role-playing games take place at the character level. Narrative games take place at the player level.

Quote from: TristramEvans;861983Um, how exactly has THIS thread reminded you of that? I've seen no one championing a "OneTrueWay" nor making any argument that resembles what you're complaining about.

 I don't think you've read this thread at all.

See page 12, or the discussion of "Narrative Games" vs " 'real' Role Playing Games"

Or the comment which imediately follows yours.

I don't think you read my post at all. I was not complaining about this site. People here seem to actually play games. I was calling out those other sites, and stating that the discussion here, and its general quality reminded me why I do not frequent those other sites.

Don't like what I have to say? Don't read it.

Quote from: DavetheLost;862015Don't like what I have to say? Don't read it.

Brilliant reply!

(But ... how can I know if I don't like what you say unless I read it?)

Quote from: aspiringlich;862025Brilliant reply!

(But ... how can I know if I don't like what you say unless I read it?)

First...get a time machine....

Quote from: Warthur;861838Indeed, FUDGE is another example of an incomplete game - indeed, it's deliberately even more incomplete and requires more work to take the basic principles of FUDGE and turn it around into a fully-featured game for your campaign.

Years ago, I picked that up; then I checked out FATE, hoping for a shortcut; then I threw in the towel. If I were to go back, though, I would leave out the elaborations of the latter.

Quote from: Phillip;861669But guess what? Again and again, people start threads on forums asking advice on which "retro-game" to choose. If there were no labels, they would just have to be invented; vocabulary is the raw material of conversation!

I have looked at a few of these so far and can see why someone would ask which one to choose. One reads like BX, one reads like 3e, one reads like AD&D, one reads like I am not sure what. and so on.

Quote from: Omega;862429I have looked at a few of these so far and can see why someone would ask which one to choose. One reads like BX, one reads like 3e, one reads like AD&D, one reads like I am not sure what. and so on.

Right, and deprived of the terms 'BX', '3e', and 'AD&D', you would not be able to construct that meaningful statement. Labeling, the division of phenomena into categories, is an essential conceptual tool.

Quote from: Phillip;861763That reminds me: What's the 5e licensing situation?

Still parcelled out on a case by case basis as of last check. About 5 or 6 publishers have deals now for so far single products each. And one getting a license to do accessories only. On the other hand they have also denied renewals of licenses. Figuring out exactly what WOTC is up to is not easy this time around.

Quote from: Omega;862429I have looked at a few of these so far and can see why someone would ask which one to choose. One reads like BX, one reads like 3e, one reads like AD&D, one reads like I am not sure what. and so on.

Could you point out the OSR game that reads like 3E? I have never encountered one. Thanks.

Quote from: Tetsubo;862527Could you point out the OSR game that reads like 3E? I have never encountered one. Thanks.

Blood & Treasure has many 3e elements like feats but way toned down.

Quote from: Bobloblah;861933(cue Pundit's predictable and entertaining self-aggrandizement),

I've won the hobby. I've defined the OSR. I've produced the best RPG product of the last half-decade. You're all living in Pundit's World now, bitches!

Quote from: RPGPundit;863142I've won the hobby. I've defined the OSR. I've produced the best RPG product of the last half-decade. You're all living in Pundit's World now, bitches!

And here I thought my campy, hyperbolic claim of being one of those "theys," one of "those OSR Bullies!", was the most over-the-top post in the thread. You're stealing my thunder here, man!

What more can I say after "More Important than the actual Renaissance" and "Is the Second Coming for the Church of Gygax Triumphant"? You're crowdin' me! What with the title of OSR Khmer Rouge already taken, where's my lil' Inquisition gonna go?
:idunno:

Git offa my lawn ya damn punks!

Quote from: RPGPundit;863142You're all living in Pundit's World now, bitches!

   Except for those of us who couldn't give two cents about the OSR, and not much more about 5E. (Even your attempt to condemn 4E to the Outer Darkness was limited. The game was more or less doomed when it launched underdeveloped, to the wrong audience, and without key components that would have made it much more friendly to casual gamers; you may have just hurled a few bits of offal into the grave. And for those who like it, nearly the entire edition remains available in perpetuity on DNDClassics.) :)

    Count yourself a king of infinite space all you like, but out here, it looks like you're bounded in a nutshell. :D

I hear that Pope Benedict retired because he was upset about the impending release of 5e. Francis, though, is cool and he not only accepts global warming but plays in an active 5e campaign.

Well, I for one welcome our new Uraguayan overlords.

Quote from: RPGPundit;863142I've won the hobby. I've defined the OSR. I've produced the best RPG product of the last half-decade. You're all living in Pundit's World now, bitches!

Funnily enough I don't own "the best RPG product of the last half-decade". Somehow it missed my radar.

Quote from: Arminius;863215I hear that Pope Benedict retired because he was upset about the impending release of 5e. Francis, though, is cool and he not only accepts global warming but plays in an active 5e campaign.

You'll find virtually no distance between Benedict and Francis on environmental issues. As for gaming, Francis would probably be a 5E, OSR or possibly Savage Worlds gamer, given his focus on meeting people where they are, and his lack of interest in grand structure. Benedict, with his more traditional sensibilities, strikes me as more inclined to BRP. And St. John Paul II, with his deeply philosophical bent and emphasis on the personal and dramatic, would probably lean towards Fate. :)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;863294You'll find virtually no distance between Benedict and Francis on environmental issues. As for gaming, Francis would probably be a 5E, OSR or possibly Savage Worlds gamer, given his focus on meeting people where they are, and his lack of interest in grand structure. Benedict, with his more traditional sensibilities, strikes me as more inclined to BRP. And St. John Paul II, with his deeply philosophical bent and emphasis on the personal and dramatic, would probably lean towards Fate. :)

Spot on on Francis. Benedict XVI is the guy running a the same weekly Hârnmaster game with the same crew for 20 years. But St. John Paul II's favorite game was, of course, Twilight:2000. :D

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;863294You'll find virtually no distance between Benedict and Francis on environmental issues. As for gaming, Francis would probably be a 5E, OSR or possibly Savage Worlds gamer, given his focus on meeting people where they are, and his lack of interest in grand structure. Benedict, with his more traditional sensibilities, strikes me as more inclined to BRP. And St. John Paul II, with his deeply philosophical bent and emphasis on the personal and dramatic, would probably lean towards Fate. :)

Thanks for that, gave me a laugh. :D

Quote from: The Butcher;863301But St. John Paul II's favorite game was, of course, Twilight:2000. :D

Another laugh, cheers. :D
I can see John Paul playing a rebel Polish soldier fighting alongside the remnant US 5th Division in a Free City of Krakow game, gunning down hordes of Spetsnaz. :)

Quote from: Tetsubo;863289Funnily enough I don't own "the best RPG product of the last half-decade". Somehow it missed my radar.

Dark Albion (http://www.dcrouzet.net/heroes-witchery/?page_id=206). You should buy it.  The reviews have been pretty much unanimous.

Quote from: RPGPundit;863868Dark Albion (http://www.dcrouzet.net/heroes-witchery/?page_id=206). You should buy it.  The reviews have been pretty much unanimous.

Thanks for the thought. I just have no interest in the OSR movement. I started in 1978. Back when 'old school' was the only school we had. I abandoned it as soon as something better arrived. I've read numerous OSR systems and found them all wanting.

Quote from: Tetsubo;863889Thanks for the thought. I just have no interest in the OSR movement. I started in 1978. Back when 'old school' was the only school we had. I abandoned it as soon as something better arrived. I've read numerous OSR systems and found them all wanting.

How so? Note I am not implying you should find classic D&D editions useful. I am interested your particular reasons. And what RPGs do you play?

Quote from: Tetsubo;863889Thanks for the thought. I just have no interest in the OSR movement. I started in 1978. Back when 'old school' was the only school we had. I abandoned it as soon as something better arrived. I've read numerous OSR systems and found them all wanting.

That's nice.  However, it's worth noting that your (and others in this thread) lack of interest in "the OSR movement," such as it is, in no way invalidates that "movement."  Just based on the results of the poll here it looks as though something like half of the rpg community does appreciate some aspect of what has come to be known as The OSR.  Whatever the reasons may be - nostalgia, one-true-wayism, whatever - it appears a significant contingent actually kinda likes this thing called The OSR.  

I haven't really read the OSR blogs in several years, but I recall a lot more "bending over backwards to NOT be edition-war-ish" than I do actual one-true-wayism in most of those blogs.  I always find the butt-hurt respons eof some folks to the OSR really strange since most of the people who have become strongly associated with the OSR have always seemed like really nice, pretty fair-minded and harmless folks to me.  I mean they like their game, and they are kind enough to self-identify as part of a specific thing so that if you don't like that thing you can safely ignore them...

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;863901That's nice.  However, it's worth noting that your (and others in this thread) lack of interest in "the OSR movement," such as it is, in no way invalidates that "movement."

1. I didn't notice anyone suggest that it did.

QuoteJust based on the results of the poll here it looks as though something like half of the rpg community does appreciate some aspect of what has come to be known as The OSR.

2. Which tells us what the people on this site who answered the poll think. They may or may not be representative of the site in general. People who post on RPG forums don't appear to be representative of the mass of people who play RPGs, so it probably doesn't tell us anything about what RPG players in general think about the OSR.

3. For any RPG X, the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the merit, suitability, or quality of game X. Yet people frequently post and act as if it does. The number of people who like Tutti-fruitti ice cream is irrelevant to whether or not I like the flavor.

4. Obviously the number of people who buy game X is relevant to marketing and business decisions about game X, about products that support game X, and about games that may compete with game X. Therefore, the number of people who like Tutti-Fruitti ice cream is relevant to how easy it is to buy Tutti-Fruitti ice cream.

Quote from: Bren;8639103. For any RPG X, the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the quality of game X. Yet people frequently post and act as if it does.

That is pure utter nonsense bullshit. The basic point to releasing any RPG material (commercial or not) to have people use it. The numbers tell you how effective your approach was. And it is only measure that is worth having.

In the short term a hyped game can sell more copies then it's usefulness and quality merits. But it evens out over the long run and over successive related products.

it applies even to specialized RPGs with a deliberate appeal to a narrow range of interest. In this case the number tell you how effective was the approach toward the target audience. If RPG A reached 500 out of a potential 1,000 customers, and RPG B reached 1,000 out of a potential 10,000 customers. Then I would say RPG A is more of a success as it succeeded in reaching more of it's intended audience.

With the above being said, it is useless as measure of a product's value for an individual gamer. What a individual gamer perceives as useful and interesting depends solely on their unique personality. The best thing an author can is clearly communicate what is his game is about and what the focus of it. That way the potential customer doesn't have to put a lot of effort in deciding whether to download or buy the product.

Quote from: Bren;8639101. I didn't notice anyone suggest that it did.

It seems pretty apparent to me based on reading the OP that the point of this poll was to offer an opportunity to "bash" the OSR.  That didn't really happen...at least not in any nearly unanimous way.

Quote2. Which tells us what the people on this site who answered the poll think. They may or may not be representative of the site in general. People who post on RPG forums don't appear to be representative of the mass of people who play RPGs, so it probably doesn't tell us anything about what RPG players in general think about the OSR.

The poll was posted on this site.  If the results of the poll posted on this site don't mean anything, why post the poll on this site at all?  

Irregardless of that, what it tells us is there are at least 50 or so people who think the OSR stuff is OK.  Since the OSR is a "movement" started by hobbyists for hobbyists, there's no particular reason it needs more of a following than that.

Quote3. For any RPG X, the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the merit, suitability, or quality of game X. Yet people frequently post and act as if it does. The number of people who like Tutti-fruitti ice cream is irrelevant to whether or not I like the flavor.

4. Obviously the number of people who buy game X is relevant to marketing and business decisions about game X, about products that support game X, and about games that may compete with game X. Therefore, the number of people who like Tutti-Fruitti ice cream is relevant to how easy it is to buy Tutti-Fruitti ice cream.

Which has nothing to do with anything we are talking about really...

Quote from: Tetsubo;863889Thanks for the thought. I just have no interest in the OSR movement. I started in 1978. Back when 'old school' was the only school we had. I abandoned it as soon as something better arrived. I've read numerous OSR systems and found them all wanting.

And I stayed with OD&D because I still like it better than anything else I've tried.

Funny ol' world, innit?  You'd almost think different people like different things.

Also, "something better" did not arrive.  Something you personally liked better arrived.  There is a difference.

Quote from: estar;863911That is pure utter nonsense bullshit. The basic point to releasing any RPG material (commercial or not) to have people use it. The numbers tell you how effective your approach was. And it is only measure that is worth having. emphasis added

That's a reasonable opinion, but hardly a universally agreed-upon position.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;863913It seems pretty apparent to me based on reading the OP that the point of this poll was to offer an opportunity to "bash" the OSR.

Or the opposite. Or something else entirely. Perhaps just to get a general sense of how relevant it is to the people of the forum. Or if they are simply tired of hearing about it.

Quote from: estar;863911That is pure utter nonsense bullshit.

Which, oddly enough, you then agreed with in the exact same post.

QuoteWith the above being said, it is useless as measure of a product's value for an individual gamer.

So is it bullshit or isn't it?

I'm familiar with the 20 million Frenchmen argument. To use language you are familiar with, "Bullshit." That's the measure of its economic value. If that's your sole measure of value, then we don't have enough in common in our world views to be able to communicate on the subject of quality or value of a object in any meaningful way. Though you might want to try reading the points 3 + 4 which I included to address economic value.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;863913It seems pretty apparent to me based on reading the OP that the point of this poll was to offer an opportunity to "bash" the OSR.  That didn't really happen...at least not in any nearly unanimous way.

I didn't interpret it that way. If you did, that helps explain your defensiveness.

QuoteThe poll was posted on this site.  If the results of the poll posted on this site don't mean anything, why post the poll on this site at all?

Curiosity. An attempt to validate a point of view. Desire to stir controversy. Ignorance of proper sampling and polling. To name just a few possible reasons. The reason why the OP posted it is irrelevant to the conclusions we can reasonably draw from the data. Which aren't much more than X people responded to answer 1, etc.

QuoteIrregardless of that, what it tells us is there are at least 50 or so people who think the OSR stuff is OK.  Since the OSR is a "movement" started by hobbyists for hobbyists, there's no particular reason it needs more of a following than that.

Regardless of the numbers, the OSR doesn't need a following to be of interest to someone. It just needs to be of interest. To someone.

QuoteWhich has nothing to do with anything we are talking about really...

It was intended to help the halfwits who confuse popularity with quality and value. I was trying to separate the concept of popularity from that of quality or value. Since you didn't get it and neither did estar, it failed to universally achieve that aim.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;863918Also, "something better" did not arrive.  Something you personally liked better arrived.  There is a difference.

One that a number of people (see above) repeatedly fail to grasp. In part because "better" is a misleading word to use when applied to individual subjective preferences. I liked Runequest 2 better than AD&D or OD&D, which is why I switched. Obviously you didn't like Runequest better* (or you never did a comparison) so you stayed with a game you liked better.



* I would argue that Runequest 2 had a better presentation than OD&D - easier to read, better formatting, clearer rules explanations, better examples, and better artwork too. But those aren't about a game system being better. Similarly I'd argue that the rules to SPI boardgames were better presented than the vast majority of RPGs, for similar reasons of clarity, formatting, and pertinent examples.

Quote from: Bren;863927I liked Runequest 2 better than AD&D or OD&D, which is why I switched. Obviously you didn't like Runequest better* (or you never did a comparison) so you stayed with a game you liked better.


* I would argue that Runequest 2 had a better presentation than OD&D - easier to read, better formatting, clearer rules explanations, better examples, and better artwork too. But those aren't about a game system being better. Similarly I'd argue that the rules to SPI boardgames were better presented than the vast majority of RPGs, for similar reasons of clarity, formatting, and pertinent examples.

OD&D really had crappy presentation.  But here in 2015 pretty much everybody knows more or less what an RPG is so it doesn't matter as much that it doesn't explain itself well.  I've reached the point of familiarity where all I really need are the attack matrices, the saving throw chart, the undead turning chart, the random monster tables, and my dungeon levels and I'm good.  Familiarity counts for a lot, with any game.

I tried Runequest, didn't like it, but that doesn't mean I think it's a "bad" game, it's just not something I like as well as other games.

Quote from: estar;863911That is pure utter nonsense bullshit. The basic point to releasing any RPG material (commercial or not) to have people use it. The numbers tell you how effective your approach was. And it is only measure that is worth having.

That was poorly put and perhaps poorly considered.

There are in fact people -- including, apparently, you with Majestic Wilderlands -- who find it plenty worth pleasing a subset of people that happens to be smaller than some other set. This is simple to appreciate, since inherently the sum of any combination of Biggest Thing with anything else is greater than BT alone, and maximal diversity actually delivers maximal pleasing of people.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;863945OD&D really had crappy presentation.  But here in 2015 pretty much everybody knows more or less what an RPG is so it doesn't matter as much that it doesn't explain itself well.  I've reached the point of familiarity where all I really need are the attack matrices, the saving throw chart, the undead turning chart, the random monster tables, and my dungeon levels and I'm good.  Familiarity counts for a lot, with any game.

Agreed. I think I had the attack matrix memorized. The saving throw chart always seemed a little quirky as to what was in which column, but I still remember much of the monster table in the beginning of book two even though it's been decades since I've looked at it or played OD&D. After all, it's not like the players needed to know much of the rule book to play. With the exception of my one friend who collected RPGs (but seldom ran any), the only people I know who bought the rules were GMs. Of course that was probably a third of the people I knew who played D&D and half or more of the people who played a lot of D&D.

QuoteI tried Runequest, didn't like it, but that doesn't mean I think it's a "bad" game, it's just not something I like as well as other games.

I'm curious what you didn't like.

With RQ, that's when I started to realize I liked more abstract games.  

EDIT:
For instance I was intrigued at first by the more differentiated armor system; you could have a mail haubergeon and steel plate greaves and studded vambraces and it meant something.  And you had hit locations and etc.

But after a fairly short while the added fun no longer seemed worth the added work.

END EDIT

I now honestly prefer level based games to skill based games as referee because it's easier for me to think in terms of "a third level fighter is third level in anything it seems reasonable for a fighter to do."

I don't mind skill based games quite as much as a player... I'm quite fond of Fantasy Trip, for instance.

But overwhelmingly for me simpler is better, as either player or ref.

Usual mileage disclaimer goes here.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;863954But overwhelmingly for me simpler is better, as either player or ref.

So to summarize, you are more simple minded than me. I can live with that. :p

Teasing aside, that makes sense. I haven't played RQ much in the last 15 years or so, in part due to the complexity. Overall my enthusiasm for greater detail/more complexity/less abstraction has waned over the years. And most of the players who liked that sort of thing aren't around any more.

The big downside to RQ I found was that combat between very skilled, especially Rune-level characters ended up either as a stalemate or (with optional rules) as just too fast and fluky.

I find that OD&D vs 1st-2nd ed. RQ ends up being mostly "six vs half a dozen." For instance, even on the point Gronan specifically mentioned, I've got Arneson's hit location system in Supp. II. I can write "Game Nerd 45%" as easily as "Nth Level Game Nerd" -- and actually the former does not require the additional step of implementation that the latter does!

To me, these are mainly just two languages that can in fact easily be mixed; I use as much or as little of the jargon as I find useful in the case at hand.

Yeah, numbers in RuneQuest can be a real kicker.  Don't expect your Rune Lord in his rune armor and with his rune sword and his divine magic to be immune to half a dozen punks with sticks.

GURPS is like this too, I remember playing the Conan: Beyond Thunder River solitaire adventure and dying repeatedly to bands of half a dozen Picts.  I did finish it eventually but even at 500 points 150 points of opponents will probably win.  This is actually an artifact of the "free" base score of 10 everyone gets.   A 0 point GURPS character is actually a 600 point GURPS character so really it's 1100 point Conan verses 3700 points of Picts.

Honestly I've always wished GURPS would have hung a bit closer to its original form and not become so bloated.  Just a bit more realistic and detailed than TFT is my sweet spot but no, GURPS became the detail freak's wet dream.  Oh well, I still love it, but I think it could have a much more dominant place in the market with a little tweaking.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;863918And I stayed with OD&D because I still like it better than anything else I've tried.

Funny ol' world, innit?  You'd almost think different people like different things.

Also, "something better" did not arrive.  Something you personally liked better arrived.  There is a difference.

I seem to have forgotten the pedantic, "...in my subjective opinion."

Quote from: Phillip;863948That was poorly put and perhaps poorly considered.

There are in fact people -- including, apparently, you with Majestic Wilderlands -- who find it plenty worth pleasing a subset of people that happens to be smaller than some other set. This is simple to appreciate, since inherently the sum of any combination of Biggest Thing with anything else is greater than BT alone, and maximal diversity actually delivers maximal pleasing of people.

I believed I covered that point with this.

Quote from: estar;863911it applies even to specialized RPGs with a deliberate appeal to a narrow range of interest. In this case the number tell you how effective was the approach toward the target audience. If RPG A reached 500 out of a potential 1,000 customers, and RPG B reached 1,000 out of a potential 10,000 customers. Then I would say RPG A is more of a success as it succeeded in reaching more of it's intended audience.

And my Majestic Wilderlands would be an example of this.

Quote from: Bren;863927Which, oddly enough, you then agreed with in the exact same post.

So is it bullshit or isn't it?

An effective product is designed to appeal or to be useful to an audience. This can be accomplished because when you observe a mass of people certain behaviors or needs become apparent.

But it doesn't work to use those observations to predict whether whatever an author comes up with will work with with a specific individual randomly chosen out of that same audience.

However to make it more frustrating is not a either or situation. It is a continuum ranging from the product working for the individual 'as is' to it doesn't work despite it targeting the individual's interests.

I have to deal with this situation in my day job in developing metal cutting software targeted to the HVAC industry. Individual shops have quirks, for some the software works 'as is' for others it doesn't but most case lies in the frustrating in between. The trick to deal it with it is design in the right kind of flexibility.

The lessons I learned from this experience, and still learning, I applied to the Majestic Wilderlands which is why I believe it a major reason why it is a electrum seller.

Compared to other OSR products, my numbers tell me that I definitely in the ballpark in regards to the OSR. However it by no means perfect as other OSR products did better than me. So I pay close attention to see what will work to make my next product better.

The numbers are the primary feedback mechanism to gauge this.

Which is especially important in the case of Blackmarsh where the PDF is free. I have five thousand+ downloads. Even now there is rarely a day where it isn't downloaded multiple times by new customer. So again that tell me that I did something right for my target audience.

Quote from: Bren;863927I'm familiar with the 20 million Frenchmen argument. To use language you are familiar with, "Bullshit." That's the measure of its economic value. If that's your sole measure of value, then we don't have enough in common in our world views to be able to communicate on the subject of quality or value of a object in any meaningful way. Though you might want to try reading the points 3 + 4 which I included to address economic value.

Again what numbers help is whether the author made something appealing or useful to audience. It doesn't nothing to help the author figure it whether it is appealing, useful  or of value to a individual gamer.

When numbers are high it is a good indication that a lot of people found it of value. And that applies even when there is no economic value involved like with the downloads of my Blackmarsh.

And it be clear I am not saying or implying just because a product has X number that you SHOULD like it if you are part of the audience it targets. The only thing I can reasonably say is "You may want to take a look at it as many people who share your interests found it valuable."

Quote from: Bren;863927It was intended to help the halfwits who confuse popularity with quality and value. I was trying to separate the concept of popularity from that of quality or value. Since you didn't get it and neither did estar, it failed to universally achieve that aim.

I don't believe there is a simplistic answer to the balance, popularity, quality, usefulness, and value. However over the years, I have come to understand that popularity is a damn good sign of quality. Not the sole sign and it certainly doesn't means only popular products are quality products.

However when I see people try to make the point you are making about popularity versus quality, I smell elitism. Which I despise.

I have no problem with people making products that inherently can't be popular because they use expensive materials, appeal to a narrow interest, use time-consuming methods of labor, etc. What I have a problem with people thinking that is somehow "better". It not. It a choice of what audience you are catering too.

For example I don't think the Majestic Wilderlands is intrinsically better because it targets the OSR. It targets the OSR because around 2007 when I started developed I understand what that audience was looking for, I was having fun playing with the same rules, and had some specific ideas I wanted to share. I combined the three to produce my work. I spread the work among the people whom I thought it find it useful.

And the fact I achieved electrum along with the numbers I got on lulu indicate that I was successful in making something useful. If I had only gotten 50 sales since 2009 then I would have re-throught my approach and come up with something different.

Quote from: David Johansen;863986Yeah, numbers in RuneQuest can be a real kicker.  Don't expect your Rune Lord in his rune armor and with his rune sword and his divine magic to be immune to half a dozen punks with sticks.

Word. Not even rune punks with rune sticks. Just, y'know, punks. With sticks.

Quote from: The Butcher;864096Word. Not even rune punks with rune sticks. Just, y'know, punks. With sticks.

Closely resembles real life - seems weird to RPGers. :D

Quote from: estar;864047I don't believe there is a simplistic answer to the balance, popularity, quality, usefulness, and value.

And since you went with the simplistic answer, that means that even by your own criteria your "bullshit" response was...well bullshit.

QuoteHowever when I see people try to make the point you are making about popularity versus quality, I smell elitism. Which I despise.

Well ain't that just too damn bad. But then your argument smells. Of populism. The somewhat mindless equating of popularity with quality. And populists always rail against any and all perceptions of elitism. And of shilling. The crass insertion of self-promotion into every conversation not matter how irrelevant.

And again, go back and read parts 3 and 4 before you hypothesize what point you think I was making.

Quote from: David Johansen;863986Yeah, numbers in RuneQuest can be a real kicker.  Don't expect your Rune Lord in his rune armor and with his rune sword and his divine magic to be immune to half a dozen punks with sticks.

Numbers are huge in Runequest. That actually fits in with a more wargame/historical style of combat. Mutual support, protecting the flanks and rear, and limiting the number of attackers who can reach you matter in RQ. So it is more realisitic than it is Homeric.

(There are tweaks like first edition Stormbringer, multiple attacks and parries for weapon masters, that allow more heroic style combat and depending on how one treats critical and special hits, Shield-4 and Protection-4 make one close to immune to punks with sticks.)

The importance of keeping the odds even or in your favor wasn't a problem in RQ play for me, my concern occurred when one Runelord faced an opposing Runelord. There combat tended to stalemate until someone rolled an unusual result like a critical or a fumble. Given the odds of that were < 10% per attack combat ended up with a fairly high whiff factor per round. (With good armor and heavy magical protection even an un-parried normal hit was unlikely to do much damage, so even a special usually was insufficient to do much.)

QuoteThis is actually an artifact of the "free" base score of 10 everyone gets.   A 0 point GURPS character is actually a 600 point GURPS character so really it's 1100 point Conan verses 3700 points of Picts.

Not a GURPS player so I didn't know this. It makes sense though. Thanks for pointing that out.

Quote from: Bren;864211And since you went with the simplistic answer, that means that even by your own criteria your "bullshit" response was...well bullshit.

Well ain't that just too damn bad. But then your argument smells. Of populism. The somewhat mindless equating of popularity with quality. And populists always rail against any and all perceptions of elitism. And of shilling. The crass insertion of self-promotion into every conversation not matter how irrelevant.

And again, go back and read parts 3 and 4 before you hypothesize what point you think I was making.

And I disagree with what you said particularly in point #3.

This

QuoteThe number of people who like Tutti-fruitti ice cream is irrelevant to whether or not I like the flavor.

In my opinion doesn't follow from this.

QuoteFor any RPG X, the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the merit, suitability, or quality of game X. Yet people frequently post and act as if it does.

While it would follow from

QuoteFor any RPG X, the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the merit, suitability, or quality of game X for a individual gamer. Yet people frequently post and act as if it does.

The bold is what I added. And that would be a point I agree with.

Quote from: David Johansen;863986Honestly I've always wished GURPS would have hung a bit closer to its original form and not become so bloated.  Just a bit more realistic and detailed than TFT is my sweet spot but no, GURPS became the detail freak's wet dream.  Oh well, I still love it, but I think it could have a much more dominant place in the market with a little tweaking.

I think GURPS is still like that. What happened the core rule books have long lists (advantages, disads, skills, etc). Cull it down and you are back to a evolved version of what 1st and 2nd edition was.

The whole problem of 4th edition GURPS and even 3rd edition is that you have to do a lot of work to create a campaign compared to other RPGs.

Quote from: estar;864228And I disagree with what you said particularly in point #3.

What is it that you disagree with?

   If you disagree that the popularity of a thing is irrelevant to whether or not I like that thing, then, among other objections, that is inconsistent with what you wrote in other places.

   If you disagree that the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the merit, suitability, or quality of game X. Then make your case.

How does the number of people who buy or play game X determine its suitability for me? My claim is that it does not.

QuoteThis
"The number of people who like Tutti-fruitti ice cream is irrelevant to whether or not I like the flavor."


In my opinion doesn't follow from this.
"For any RPG X, the number of people who buy or play game X says nothing about the merit, suitability, or quality of game X. Yet people frequently post and act as if it does."

Nor would I expect it to follow since those are two different ways of saying more or less the same thing—that the popularity of a thing doesn't tell you whether or not you will like that thing.

The suitability of a thing for you is whether or not it is suitable for you, i.e. do you like it. So popularity does not equal suitability for an individual.

Now if I was talking about business cases and marketing (which points 1 and 2 were not), then the business (and its competitors)  care about the number of people for whom a game happens to be suitable because that likely affects sales. Popularity correlates to suitability. Hence (since popularity is much easier to measure than suitability) popularity is frequently used by businesses as a proxy for suitability. This tendency to identify one with the other is strengthen because from a business standpoint, popularity, i.e. number of units sold, is in the short term a really good proxy for suitability. In the short term, the business doesn't care if the product could be made more suitable as long as sales of the existing product are deemed sufficient, i.e. as long as the existing product is deemed sufficiently popular.

Which is more or less what I said in point 4.

Quote from: Bren;8639104. Obviously the number of people who buy game X is relevant to marketing and business decisions about game X, about products that support game X, and about games that may compete with game X. Therefore, the number of people who like Tutti-Fruitti ice cream is relevant to how easy it is to buy Tutti-Fruitti ice cream.

Clearly popularity and suitability are not the same thing. Which is why, in the long term, successful businesses look at the degree of suitability. Because if they don't, a competitor may create a new products that is more suitable for a larger number of people than the existing product and that new product may eventually become more popular (i.e. sell more units) than would the existing product.

RQ 2 has multiple attacks and parries for skills of 100 or more.  That's really the mechanism for dealing with those weapon masters with skills over 100.  If I could find the book I'd totally be running RQ 2 tonight.  As it is I may just run BRP Gold in Glorantha.  It's tempting.

I think the 600 point base character is one of the reasons new players have trouble balancing GURPS encounters.  Also, skeletons were ridiculously powerful in first edition if you dropped the template onto a 25 point fighting man.

Quote from: David Johansen;864282RQ 2 has multiple attacks and parries for skills of 100 or more.  That's really the mechanism for dealing with those weapon masters with skills over 100.

It's been a while since I ran the numbers, but my recollection is that it isn't advantageous to take two 60% attacks instead of one 120% attack. Ditto on parries.

Stormbringer 1 had different rules where you could parry and (I think) riposte multiple times against multiple attackers. Each attack or parry after the first was at -20% cumulative per additional attack. So, for the same 120% attack, the first attack is at 120%, the second would be at 100%, the third at 80%, the fourth at 60% etc. It made it less advantageous for weak opponents to gang up on tough ones. Especially someone with a demon weapon that might be doing hellacious damage on each hit.

Quote from: David Johansen;863986Yeah, numbers in RuneQuest can be a real kicker.  Don't expect your Rune Lord in his rune armor and with his rune sword and his divine magic to be immune to half a dozen punks with sticks.

Not immune, precisely; the longer a figure is played, the greater the likelihood of a one-in-a-thousand event having come up. However, if I've got 90% attack and parry and an opponent has 20%, that comes to 72/2 = 36 to 1 odds in scoring a hit. If he's doing 1d6+1 and I've got 8 points of armor, he needs a critical hit or impale to do anything; whereas if I'm doing 1d8+1+1d6 vs. no armor, anything I hit is usually out of action even with an ordinary blow.

A couple or three reduced quickly to lying in the dust bleeding their last tends to lead the rest to finding that they have somewhere else to be.

And it is even worse than Phillip mentioned since he stopped at the point of a significant hit. The Runelord can heal up some (if not all) of the damage that the pointy stick guy is likely to deal out while PSG will be lucky to have Healing-2 to stop any bleeding that the Runelord is likely to start.

Quote from: Tetsubo;863889Thanks for the thought. I just have no interest in the OSR movement. I started in 1978. Back when 'old school' was the only school we had. I abandoned it as soon as something better arrived. I've read numerous OSR systems and found them all wanting.

Well, Dark Albion (http://www.dcrouzet.net/heroes-witchery/?page_id=206) isn't an 'osr system'.  It's a 275 page setting book. you can use it with any version of D&D you prefer.  It has a couple of little add-ons for rules (like tables for social class and character prior-history; and kickass medieval-authentic demon-summoning rules), and a few pages of appendices with some other house rules, but everything else in the book is system neutral.

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.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866459Was 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.

In the 1990s T$R in their infinite wisdom were doing their best to squelch fan-produced Internet material for AD&D, but there was still a lot of it about, eg the Netbooks. Compared to the OSR the quality was generally very poor, though.

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.

Beyond what I have created for use within my own games, I post a weekly RPG video every Saturday. Most of them are just ideas tossed out for other people to use. Some of them are reviews. This is all done free of charge. The OSR community does not hold some monopoly on creative output. Pathfinder may have more commercial material, though often small scale operations, because it is a single unified system. Rather that the OSR movement which is scattered in two dozen directions. I even review OSR material occasionally. Though I would never use it in an OSR game. I played 'old school' when it was the only school. I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

Quote from: S'mon;866497In the 1990s T$R in their infinite wisdom were doing their best to squelch fan-produced Internet material for AD&D, but there was still a lot of it about, eg the Netbooks. Compared to the OSR the quality was generally very poor, though.

They wielded the BanHammer like an Olympic athlete. Left a bad taste in my mouth to this day. The OGL was the greatest gift the RPG community ever received.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501The OSR community does not hold some monopoly on creative output.'

Which is an assertion put forth by ... (looking back) ... no one. All that's been said is that there seems to be a good deal more of it going on among OSR gamers than among fans of modern systems.

Quote from: TetsuboThough I would never use it in an OSR game. I played 'old school' when it was the only school.

Yeah, we know, because you never miss a chance to remind everyone of this, even when it has less than nothing to do with the topic at hand. Your "I played D&D back in the 70s! but I've since seen the light, and so should you!" schtick has gotten tiresome.

QuoteI have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

The same parroted bullshit line we've been hearing since forever. Fuck you too.

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.

That not the same as producing a formal published products which what I believe you were talking in regards to the OSR.

If sharing material what you are talking about then you need to check out the Pathfinder blogs, forums, Facebook, and Google Plus. There are plenty of people sharing material and their number probably an order of magnitude larger than the OSR. The same with the D&D 5e community.

What makes the OSR different is the structure of hobby in regards of to formally published material.

Pathfinder and D&D 5e  both have a central focus. Traveller has three focuses (Far Future, Mongoose, SJ Games), Runequest roughly has a limited number of focuses (Chaosium (BRP), OpenQuest, Mongoose (Legends), Design Mechanism, and Moon Publishing). And recently Chaosium/Design/Moon came to together. GURPS has SJ Games, Harn has Columbia Games and Kelestia Productions, Fantasy Age/Dragon Age has Green Ronin and so on.

In contrast the OSR has dozens of publishers and among them half-dozen or so where producing OSR material is a full-time focus. Lamentation, Gobliniod, Frog God, Goodman Games, Sine Nominae, etc. This is unique in the industry and hobby to have so many publishers targeting the same games with roughly equal levels of influence.

In theory this could change if Wizard decides to fully support classic D&D. But that not likely to happen outside of a few special products like the reprints.

Back in the 90s there was a fair amount of unapproaved self-published things floating around filesharing, IRC and usenet, along with the usual bootleg things.  The availablity of out of print things through bootleg scans had a fair amount of impact on rediscovery of some games and various related items.  Folks don't like to talk about the omni-present bootlegs, but they had some impact on renewed popularity of various older games.

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.

Well today blogs and forums are viable options to zines. Again there is plenty of creative content sharing just not as much formal publishing proportionally as there is in the OSR.

Quote from: estar;866507Well today blogs and forums are viable options to zines. Again there is plenty of creative content sharing just not as much formal publishing proportionally as there is in the OSR.

  I'm not even sure about the latter. There are almost as many Pathfinder products on OBS as there are "Unofficial D&D" ones--and Paizo doesn't sell through OBS.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

See, this is the kind of remark that makes you look like nothing more than an arrogant, ignorant tool. Collectively, the OSR is about the size of a second-tier RPG publisher, and has a rather significant audience. To suggest that the majority of people who continue to play OSR games, never mind publish OSR material, are merely there for the nostalgia (hint: nostalgia doesn't make things fun if they aren't) is colossally stupid.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501I played 'old school' when it was the only school. I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

I was born in 1981 and I didn't really start roleplaying until 2003 when D&D 3.5e was out (which was my first RPG book purchased). For me, old school is most certainly not nostalgia, just the way that I find more fun to play, and which I came to years after I started.

When I compare back to all the time I spent in 3e and 4e, thinking about character optimisation, trying to work out what was good, what was bad (I wasn't very good at it), planning characters levels in advance -- I can barely remember any of the actual games I played, only a few moments that arose which usually had little to do with the rules.

Last time I tried to play Pathfinder, I had a moment of nostalgia, thinking "oh yes, I remember this..." but quickly realised why I gave up on all that complexity and too much definition.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866514See, this is the kind of remark that makes you look like nothing more than an arrogant, ignorant tool. Collectively, the OSR is about the size of a second-tier RPG publisher, and has a rather significant audience. To suggest that the majority of people who continue to play OSR games, never mind publish OSR material, are merely there for the nostalgia (hint: nostalgia doesn't make things fun if they aren't) is colossally stupid.

Use more invectives, that'll teach him.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;866542Use more invectives, that'll teach him.

You're clearly new here if that mild rebuke offends your delicate sensibilities. I wouldn't recommend disagreeing with anyone else on the site, as you might not survive the experience. As for Tetsubo, I'm fairly certain he can both speak for, and defend, himself.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866503Which is an assertion put forth by ... (looking back) ... no one. All that's been said is that there seems to be a good deal more of it going on among OSR gamers than among fans of modern systems.


Yeah, we know, because you never miss a chance to remind everyone of this, even when it has less than nothing to do with the topic at hand. Your "I played D&D back in the 70s! but I've since seen the light, and so should you!" schtick has gotten tiresome.


The same parroted bullshit line we've been hearing since forever. Fuck you too.

Have a happy holiday season.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866543You're clearly new here if that mild rebuke offends your delicate sensibilities. I wouldn't recommend disagreeing with anyone else on the site, as you might not survive the experience. As for Tetsubo, I'm fairly certain he can both speak for, and defend, himself.

I wasn't offended. I was lightheartedly pointing out how little that accomplished.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;866679I wasn't offended. I was lightheartedly pointing out how little that accomplished.

Ah, yes... because pointing out when someone is being a jerk never modifies behaviour, or draws anyone's attention to it. Please.

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

Hell yes it's an issue! For every Testsubo who digs slaving over hot stat blocks, there are several people who find that a drag -- but have no problem making (or using) a quick and dirty mechanical write up that's just a fraction of a description mostly in plain language.

As other people have pointed out it's hard to be nostalgic for stuff you didn't play before. As a kid I got on board with the 90's style of play ("random encounters are a waste of time, they distract players from the PLOT!") since that was what was around at the time. Not really nostalgic at all for that. I like the OSR stuff before it's fun, not because of any specific memories.

Quote from: Tetsubo;866501I have not fallen victim to chronic nostalgia.

And I have not fallen victim to mindless neophilia.

So tongue my pee hole.

The funny thing is that anyone who still plays Pathfinder/3.x D&D can also be accused of playing for ~nostalgia~ at this point since that game is now two editions "out of fashion."

If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

Quote from: misterguignol;866745The funny thing is that anyone who still plays Pathfinder/3.x D&D can also be accused of playing for ~nostalgia~ at this point since that game is now two editions "out of fashion."

If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

Don't be silly! It was all advancement until Tetsubo's preferred edition came out, but it's been downhill ever since.

Quote from: Bobloblah;866748Don't be silly! It was all advancement until Tetsubo's preferred edition came out, but it's been downhill ever since.

* Orson Welles slow clap  *

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;866751* Orson Welles slow clap  *

I shall cherish this moment until the next time you tell me to tongue your pee hole.

It's fair to say that a sizable amount of the OSR's success is based on nostalgia. We can all argue about how sizable, but I know from actual play at conventions and FLGS game days, there is a lot of warm fuzzies about "the good olde days" at the OSR tables.

And that's not a bad thing, as long as new players and young players also feel welcomed.

Quote from: Trond;866096My impression is that OSR is mostly about D&D, and not other old games. I always liked Runequest (and even Rolemaster) more.

It's fair to say that majority of the OSR is focused on D&D Revivalism. However, there are some members who are breaking out other golden oldies as well.

I think the reason you don't hear about RQ and Traveller being discussed as much in OSR circles is because Mongoose has been printing new books for both for years now.

However, there are some retro-clones for non-TSR games too.

Quote from: Spinachcat;866766It's fair to say that a sizable amount of the OSR's success is based on nostalgia. We can all argue about how sizable, but I know from actual play at conventions and FLGS game days, there is a lot of warm fuzzies about "the good olde days" at the OSR tables.

If it's nostalgia, it seems to be mostly nostalgia for an era of gaming - the mid to late 70s - that most of the participants never themselves experienced.

I think the very early OSR or proto-OSR (Dragonsfoot, C&C, OSRIC) was based around 1e AD&D modules and module-based play (mostly competition modules), the era that began with Against the Giants and ended in the late 1980s. I think that nostalgia and simple continuity of play plays a big role there - a typical Dragonsfooter in 2002 probably was just playing the same way they had been doing in 1986.

But the more recent West Marches, Grognardia and post-Grognardia OSR seems much more about the sandbox hexcrawling and the megadungeon, styles already falling out of favour in the late 1970s and only ever experienced by a relatively small number of gamers at the time. If it's nostalgia, it's nostalgia for a mythic past, rarely nostalgia for our own remembered past.

Quote from: S'mon;866789But the more recent West Marches, Grognardia and post-Grognardia OSR seems much more about the sandbox hexcrawling and the megadungeon, styles already falling out of favour in the late 1970s and only ever experienced by a relatively small number of gamers at the time. If it's nostalgia, it's nostalgia for a mythic past, rarely nostalgia for our own remembered past.

I always find comments that I favor old games like OD&D because "nostalgia" to be very funny as it's hard to be doing something because of "nostalgia" when you have been doing it since 1975. I'm one of those rare people who has been doing sandbox "hexcrawling" and "megadungeons" since 1975.

I'd try newer rules sets/styles of play as they came out over the years but never enjoyed them enough to switch. If I liked rules in newer versions of D&D or other games, I just added them to my original D&D based game -- after all, to my mind RPG rules are all just guidelines for the GM to use or change as needed for the setting/campaign the GM is using.

New styles tend to turn me off because they stress things I find boring in fantasy RPGs:

a) Detailed combat that takes more than 5-10 minutes of real time to play out (on average)

b) having a preplanned story that the PCs are expected to move through more or less as planned.

c) set piece encounters

d) mechanics that do not fade into the background

e) characters that have to start as "big damn heroes" because the rules don't really include a way to start "below" that.

f) systems that leave out things like morale and assume that almost every encounter will be combat.

g) systems where character builds (especially pre-planned builds) are important

h) systems that do not work well with TOTM combat

i) innovation for innovation's sake

j) systems so tightly designed that they are hard to house rule.

k) systems that encourage tolerating munchkinism and rules lawyering

Apparently being having with the system one has instead of moving to every new thing as it comes out (even if it doesn't do your style of play any better than what you are using) is "nostalgia" to many gamers.

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.

REally? In the early aughts there seemed to be d20 products, blods, pdfs, webzines, online classes and support EVERYWHERE. That the system is 16 years old may have more to do with your perception that the new shiny OSR stuff is in more abundance.

Quote from: RandallS;866802I always find comments that I favor old games like OD&D because "nostalgia" to be very funny as it's hard to be doing something because of "nostalgia" when you have been doing it since 1975. I'm one of those rare people who has been doing sandbox "hexcrawling" and "megadungeons" since 1975.

Then you go in the 'simple continuity of play' box. :D

IME your kind are a small proportion of the active OSR. I don't think anyone at my London D&D Meetup has been playing since the '70s, but plenty of Old School D&D gets played alongside the 5e.

Quote from: TristramEvans;866821REally? In the early aughts there seemed to be d20 products, blods, pdfs, webzines, online classes and support EVERYWHERE. That the system is 16 years old may have more to do with your perception that the new shiny OSR stuff is in more abundance.

I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

Quote from: misterguignol;866745If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

True.

That's the fun thing about logic. Anything follows from a false premise.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866838I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

Well, "creativity" might be a bit generous in all fairness. There's a reason the D20 logo causes a bit of reflexive nausea in me these days.

Quote from: misterguignol;866745If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

It was "old tech" before it ever was officially published.

Bad math. Bad design. But great production and support.

Let's not forget that Pathfinder's genesis was a direct reaction to WotC's creation of 4e for the sake of Paizo's existence. It happened to payoff.

The system is still bad. But fixable if you like constantly doing that kinda shit non-stop. I have stat-blocs for my Pathfinder game's NPC's when my PC's hit 15th level... that are *two* pages long. I think I have fucking nosebleed-drippings on them from staring at them too long...

In this conversation - I think there is a happy medium. I exist in the RPG-Game-O-Sphere quite comfortably knowing my brethren-in-dice love their OSR games. More power to them and their enjoyment. Not my cuppa. But as I am of that vintage - I'll never diss it either because the simplicity of the game is an understandable thing to really enjoy without all the extra frippery.

I cast a odd look at people who deny this or worse worship silly rules-as-the-game. I will cry foul-ball.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866838I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

You must still live there then since OGL material continues to be published in large quantities today.  Either you have somehow failed to notice the huge amount of OGL material that has come out over the last 15-16 years or you are dismissing it all as not really creative.

Quote from: yosemitemike;866953You must still live there then since OGL material continues to be published in large quantities today.  Either you have somehow failed to notice the huge amount of OGL material that has come out over the last 15-16 years or you are dismissing it all as not really creative.

And you must have not have bothered to read the previous discussion, since I never even hinted at any such thing.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866838I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

So either you missed all that material coming out or you don't count it as creativity.  

Quote from: aspiringlich;866958And you must have not have bothered to read the previous discussion, since I never even hinted at any such thing.

I guess it doesn't count as hinting if you just say something outright.  So, which is it?  Did you miss the explosion of OGL material or do you not count it as creativity for some reason?

Quote from: yosemitemike;866982So either you missed all that material coming out or you don't count it as creativity.  



I guess it doesn't count as hinting if you just say something outright.  So, which is it?  Did you miss the explosion of OGL material or do you not count it as creativity for some reason?

Context. First learn what that is and why it's important. Then figure out what the context of my statement was. Maybe then I'll point out just how ignorant you're coming across right now.

Quote from: aspiringlich;867020

Quote from: yosemitemike;866982So either you missed all that material coming out or you don't count it as creativity.


I guess it doesn't count as hinting if you just say something outright.  So, which is it?  Did you miss the explosion of OGL material or do you not count it as creativity for some reason?

Context. First learn what that is and why it's important. Then figure out what the context of my statement was. Maybe then I'll point out how just ignorant you're coming across right now.

:popcorn:

Quote from: Spinachcat;866766It's fair to say that majority of the OSR is focused on D&D Revivalism. However, there are some members who are breaking out other golden oldies as well.

I think the main thing is that other fandoms don't have such a clear and fierce 'school' division, if any, and where they do divide may be on quite different issues than the ones that are hot topics in D&D.

Indeed, I think the fans of most RPG brands are quite happy with them pretty much as they have always been. There's not such a large community around them, but neither are the few people wishing to share material scared of getting sued. Palladium I think stands as a notable exception.

From what I've seen of the Mongoose editions of RQ and Traveller, there are some pretty notable differences from the 1980s editions, but there's enough similarity across editions for most fans to just roll with whatever is on the table in a given campaign.

Hardcore Traveller fanatics have their "edition wars," but the brand pretty early became more strongly identified with the Galaxy of the Third Imperium setting. I think that's partly because the line from the start encompassed so many different kinds of game (including miniatures and board games).

RuneQuest from the start was associated with the world of Glorantha (with variations on the "Basic Role Playing" rules framework spun off for other subjects). However, the fans obsessed with canonical background lore seem mainly to have gravitated to Hero Quest, while the RQ rules have attracted more enthusiasts who are not so keen on Glorantha.

Quote from: aspiringlich;867020Context. First learn what that is and why it's important. Then figure out what the context of my statement was. Maybe then I'll point out just how ignorant you're coming across right now.

Talking vaguely about context but not bothering to explain the supposed context or how it would make the statement mean something other than what it says is a standard weasel tactic.  So is trying to put deflect and put the other person on the defensive with insults.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867140Talking vaguely about context but not bothering to explain the supposed context or how it would make the statement mean something other than what it says is a standard weasel tactic.  So is trying to put deflect and put the other person on the defensive with insults.

You could follow the links back to the original post. As I recall the context was plain and obvious to me at the time. Also as I recall, he was referring to the glut of D20 games and his post suggested that not all the D20 games published during the glut were novel or especially creative. The example was used as a contradiction of the idea that publishing lots of stuff was a guarantee of novelty or creativity. At least that's what I seem to recall about one post I quickly read in between lots of more important stuff I was doing a couple of days or more ago in some other time zone.

Quote from: Bren;867144You could follow the links back to the original post. As I recall the context was plain and obvious to me at the time. Also as I recall, he was referring to the glut of D20 games and his post suggested that not all the D20 games published during the glut were novel or especially creative. The example was used as a contradiction of the idea that publishing lots of stuff was a guarantee of novelty or creativity. At least that's what I seem to recall about one post I quickly read in between lots of more important stuff I was doing a couple of days or more ago in some other time zone.

I don't recall anyone suggesting that all of that material was creative in the first place.  I don't recall anyone saying anything about guarantees either.  However, if you have a large body of material being put out by a variety of publishers, odds are very good that there is some wheat among the chaff.  Pretending other wise and saying, "Creativity?  What creativity lol?" is just silly dick waving.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867148I don't recall anyone suggesting that all of that material was creative in the first place.  I don't recall anyone saying anything about guarantees either.  However, if you have a large body of material being put out by a variety of publishers, odds are very good that there is some wheat among the chaff.  Pretending other wise and saying, "Creativity?  What creativity lol?" is just silly dick waving.

So I rerad the original post. Sadly My recollection was faulty. Creativity was not the subject. Ubiquity was. I confuted AspiringLich's post with that of TristramEvans.

Why you continue to harp on the subject of creativity, which AspirigLich never mentioned escapes me. Perhaps you, like me, didn't remember the post you responded to or maybe you just responded to the wrong post. Perhaps you should reread that portion of the thread. Just click here (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=866838&postcount=238) to start reading.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867140Talking vaguely about context but not bothering to explain the supposed context or how it would make the statement mean something other than what it says is a standard weasel tactic.  So is trying to put deflect and put the other person on the defensive with insults.

I'm under no obligation to explain the context to you. There's a reason why previous posts in the thread aren't deleted: it's is so people can read them and thereby avoid making asses of themselves by jumping into the discussion without knowing what's already been said. If you're too damned lazy to do even that much, then don't be surprised at the insults you receive. They're deserved.

Quote from: aspiringlich;867150I'm under no obligation to explain the context to you.

Then I will consider that a rhetorical dodge and dismiss it as such.  Saying, "not my job to educate you" is another standard rhetorical dodge.  Say the exchange was reversed.

Other person: Lotta creative OSR stuff has come out in the last few years.
Me: Creative?  Musta missed that lol

How would people read that?  The obvious response would be that I had somehow missed all the stuff that came out or that I am dismissing it as not really creative for some reason.  The former is more credible for the OSR stuff since it isn't all that prominent on most store shelves.  It's not at all credible for OGL products which are everywhere and were even more prevalent back then.  I doubt excuses like talking vaguely about context or claiming I meant that it wasn't all creative would fly either.

So you are saying that the D20 license/Open Game License caused creative material to be released under them back in the early 2000s?  Yes?  No?  Don't respond to a claim that all of it was creative since no one made that claim in the first place.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867153Then I will consider that a rhetorical dodge and dismiss it as such.

Thus demonstrating that you are mentally sub-standard and not worth any more of my time. Good day sir.

Quote from: aspiringlich;867157Thus demonstrating that you are mentally sub-standard and not worth any more of my time. Good day sir.

There's another standard rhetorical dodge to check off.

Girls, girls!  You're BOTH pretty!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;867161Girls, girls!  You're BOTH pretty!

but who do you like best?  Hmmmmm?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;867161Girls, girls!  You're BOTH pretty!

Thanks, Mrs. Garrett! Can I go roller skate outside now? :D

Quote from: yosemitemike;867153Then I will consider that a rhetorical dodge and dismiss it as such.  Saying, "not my job to educate you" is another standard rhetorical dodge.  Say the exchange was reversed.

OK. Would it look something like this?

You: I don't understand your context.

Other person: The context is clear. Why don't you read the posts?

You: That is a ridiculous demand. It must be a rhetorical dodge. You should spoon feed me the context so I don't have to read the thread I am posting in.

Quote from: Opaopajr;867165Thanks, Mrs. Garrett! Can I go roller skate outside now? :D

As long as it is in traffic and you don't look both ways Trudi.

Quote from: Bren;867166OK. Would it look something like this?

Me: You said something that implies A or B.  Which is it?

Other person: Nuh uh cuz context.

Me: That's a tired old excuse.

Yeah, that's about the size of it.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867173Yeah, that's about the size of it.

You really are finding this whole "context" thing baffling aren't you. Let me try another example.

   Original Poster: I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed all the clever Rabbits.

You: Either you somehow failed to notice the mammals that are all around us or you are saying there are no clever mamamls.

Original poster: I think you missed the context of my original statement.

You: Referring to context is just a rhetorical dodge. You must be saying either that you have never seen many mammals or that there are no clever mammals. And that's just wrong because there are lots of mammals around and several mammals are clever.

Original Poster: Your continuing inability to understand what I said makes you look stupid.

You: That's just another rhetorical dodge. Either you are saying you've never seen many mammals or that there are no clever mammals.

Notice the original post never mentioned all mammals and in particular he never mentioned the cleverness of all mammals in any context.

Quote from: Bren;867182You really are finding this whole "context" thing baffling aren't you.

Not really.  I have just seen this "because context" thing used over and over again and I'm not buying it.

Quote from: Bren;867166As long as it is in traffic and you don't look both ways Trudi.

I think that's called a microaggresion nowadays, Mrs. Garett, but OK! :p

Quote from: yosemitemike;867189Not really.  I have just seen this "because context" thing used over and over again and I'm not buying it.

Well yosemitemike, don't feel bad. Context is hard to learn. Since context costs too much for your budget, here's a free web site (http://www.rong-chang.com/) to help you. This site has an award winning feature called "Talk to Tutor Mike (http://www.rong-chang.com/tutor_mike.htm)" that will help you. Tutor Mike will help you to learn English. If you practice a lot with Tutor Mike, you will read and understand the posts on this site. :cheerleader:

Quote from: Bren;867241Well yosemitemike, don't feel bad. Context is hard to learn. Since context costs too much for your budget, here's a free web site (http://www.rong-chang.com/) to help you. This site has an award winning feature called "Talk to Tutor Mike (http://www.rong-chang.com/tutor_mike.htm)" that will help you. Tutor Mike will help you to learn English. If you practice a lot with Tutor Mike, you will read and understand the posts on this site. :cheerleader:

:rotfl:

Quote from: Bren;867241Well yosemitemike, don't feel bad. Context is hard to learn. Since context costs too much for your budget, here's a free web site (http://www.rong-chang.com/) to help you. This site has an award winning feature called "Talk to Tutor Mike (http://www.rong-chang.com/tutor_mike.htm)" that will help you. Tutor Mike will help you to learn English. If you practice a lot with Tutor Mike, you will read and understand the posts on this site. :cheerleader:

:worship::worship::worship:

Quote from: yosemitemike;867189Not really.  I have just seen this "because context" thing used over and over again and I'm not buying it.

So you're denying that there is such a thing as "context?"

:huhsign:

Quote from: Bren;867241Well yosemitemike, don't feel bad.

I never feel bad about pointing out BS.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;867289So you're denying that there is such a thing as "context?"

:huhsign:

Yeah, no.  We've all seen people trying to weasel out of something they said by talking vaguely about being taken out of context.  The dead giveaway that this is bullshit is that they don't bother to try to explain what the context was that would make what they said mean something other than what they said and/or refuse to explain this when asked.  Also, instead of trying to explain this context they are vaguely referring to, they try to put the other person on the defensive with name calling.  Do we have those things here?  Check, check and check.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867383Yeah, no.  We've all seen people trying to weasel out of something they said by talking vaguely about being taken out of context.  The dead giveaway that this is bullshit is that they don't bother to try to explain what the context was that would make what they said mean something other than what they said and/or refuse to explain this when asked.  Also, instead of trying to explain this context they are vaguely referring to, they try to put the other person on the defensive with name calling.  Do we have those things here?  Check, check and check.

The context of Aspiring Lich's post isn't exactly well hidden, all you have to do is read the post he was replying to, which is only two posts higher in the thread.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;867450The context of Aspiring Lich's post isn't exactly well hidden, all you have to do is read the post he was replying to, which is only two posts higher in the thread.

and nothing there makes me think that what he said means anything other than what the words say.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867453and nothing there makes me think that what he said means anything other than what the words say.

Well lets look what the words said then:

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.

Quote from: TristramEvans;866821REally? In the early aughts there seemed to be d20 products, blods, pdfs, webzines, online classes and support EVERYWHERE. That the system is 16 years old may have more to do with your perception that the new shiny OSR stuff is in more abundance.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866838I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

So, in summary, AspiringLich said that in recent years there hasn't been as much fan-generated OGL material as there has been OSR material, but acknowledged that he missed the huge outburst of OGL material there was 10-15 years ago.

Quote from: yosemitemike;866953You must still live there then since OGL material continues to be published in large quantities today.  Either you have somehow failed to notice the huge amount of OGL material that has come out over the last 15-16 years or you are dismissing it all as not really creative.

"Not as much X as Y recently" does not mean the same as "Not very much X ever" or "X is all not good".

Quote from: JoeNuttall;867462So, in summary, AspiringLich said that in recent years there hasn't been as much fan-generated OGL material as there has been OSR material, but acknowledged that he missed the huge outburst of OGL material there was 10-15 years ago.

Unless he was actually living in a monastery, I'm not seeing it.  I assumed that was sarcasm.  Was he actually living in a monastery then?

Quote from: JoeNuttall;867462So, in summary, AspiringLich said that in recent years there hasn't been as much fan-generated OGL material as there has been OSR material, but acknowledged that he missed the huge outburst of OGL material there was 10-15 years ago.

"Not as much X as Y recently" does not mean the same as "Not very much X ever" or "X is all not good".

See how easy that was, yosemitemike? With just a minute's worth of reading, you could have saved yourself all that embarrassment.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867465Unless he was actually living in a monastery, I'm not seeing it.  I assumed that was sarcasm.  Was he actually living in a monastery then?

As is so often the case with assumptions, yours was wrong. I was indeed living in a monastery then.

Why yes you did, as you said three whole days ago in this very thread! :)

Quote from: aspiringlich;866838I was living in a monastery in the early aughts, so I guess I missed that phase of d20 creativity.

It's amazing what you can find skating around! :p

Context. The more you know! ;)

Quote from: aspiringlich;867478As is so often the case with assumptions, yours was wrong. I was indeed living in a monastery then.

So, in context, it was the first of the two things I listed then.  Great.  Glad we cleared that up.

Quote from: yosemitemike;867563So, in context, it was the first of the two things I listed then.  Great.  Glad we cleared that up.

You just keep on thinking that buddy. If you like to cling to false beliefs, knock yourself out.

Quote from: aspiringlich;867565You just keep on thinking that buddy. If you like to cling to false beliefs, knock yourself out.

Quote from: yosemitemike;866982So either you missed all that material coming out or you don't count it as creativity.  

So it was that first one.  You missed that material  Got it.

Quote from: aspiringlich;866503Which is an assertion put forth by ... (looking back) ... no one. All that's been said is that there seems to be a good deal more of it going on among OSR gamers than among fans of modern systems.

Bwahahaha, that line is funny despite the Big War Of Unclear Contexts it lead to:D. FYI, it made both sides look bad, at least from where I'm standing.

Seriously, man*, you know what you haven't considered? That this might be because we need much less "extra material" to play other systems.
And this has everything to do with both d20 and TSR-era D&D being class systems, and nothing at all to do with the age of either:).

If you want a non-standard setting with a class system ("more modern" counts as "non-standard", too, d20 Modern be my witness!), you're best served by custom classes. So you need custom classes, and once you've created them, in writing, the easiest thing to do is to post them on a blog or something. At least, you can revisit the setting later.

Conversely, to play in the same non-standard setting with something like Savage Worlds or BRP requires...almost zero conversion at all. And since everyone has a homebrew, why should I even post it on a blog? Other than in system-less terms, that is? In which case, I might as well post it without mentioning that I developed it for an RPG...

*I assume your monastery wasn't a nunnery. Apologies if I'm wrong.

Quote from: misterguignol;866745The funny thing is that anyone who still plays Pathfinder/3.x D&D can also be accused of playing for ~nostalgia~ at this point since that game is now two editions "out of fashion."

If ~games are technology that advances~ (lol) then Pathfinder is clearly old tech and only played out of nostalgia, right?

The informal surveys of 3.5/PF players about moving to 5e I've seen mostly give those answers, from what I've seen.

"I didn't move to 5e because it's not enough improvement to warrant learning a new system".
"I didn't move to 5e because I haven't got the time to learn a new system, I know this one and it serves me well".
"I didn't move to 5e because it ain't got enough material to allow fun comboes, yet".
"I didn't move to 5e because it's got too much 4e left in its mechanics, and I hated that game, so it wasn't an improvement for me".
"I didn't move to 5e because the rules aren't free, and I don't want to spend that kind of money just to get rules again".
Only one of those can count as "nostalgia". Most of them count as "economics in action", meaning the principles of making a rational choice.
Make of that what you will;).

Given the existence of the Basic PDF, at least one of them is also factually inaccurate. ;)

Quote from: Warthur;867729Given the existence of the Basic PDF, at least one of them is also factually inaccurate. ;)

OTOH, for 3.5/PF fans, Basic is probably too lacking in character options.

Quote from: Warthur;867729Given the existence of the Basic PDF, at least one of them is also factually inaccurate. ;)

Actually no, for way too many people if it's not the whole rules, it's a nice bonus, but doesn't count as nearly enough when you want to run a game;).

Quote from: Teazia;866353Dwimmermount broke the OSR.  

In what way do you mean that?

I have trouble seeing any situation where Dwimmermount 'broke' the OSR. It sure was a shitty situation for Autarch, but they're making a comeback now.
And more than anything, it SAVED the OSR from the bullshit warship of James Maliszewski.  They finally realized that the enormous lying opportunistic asshole had no clothes.

Quote from: AsenRG;867757Actually no, for way too many people if it's not the whole rules, it's a nice bonus, but doesn't count as nearly enough when you want to run a game;).

The basic PDF pretty much does have the whole of the actual rules though. It doesn't provide all the character options and whatnot but the actual procedures of play are all in there.

It certainly must be helpful for when not-enough-PHB-in-the-group type situations that I've certainly had with my preferred editions, but I doubt many of the intended audience want to play without the full "core" set of rules, if only for psychological reasons.

Quote from: Warthur;867970The basic PDF pretty much does have the whole of the actual rules though. It doesn't provide all the character options and whatnot but the actual procedures of play are all in there.

This is true. Basic 5e is a complete game. I've ran such a game PbP here already (currently on hiatus).

To call it "incomplete," or "psychologically reassuring," is rather strange. Sounds to me almost infantilizing players as dysfunctional lest they are "entitled" to all the widgets on display. That road then leads to reading the optional as mandatory, such as 5e Feats and Multiclassing, as we've seen with 2e's WP/NWPs and Individual Initiative with Weapon Speed mods.

Let's nip that bit of foolishness in the bud while we can this time around. I think we've learned better over the years. Basic 5e is a complete set of the core rules, period. Otherwise it would be incompatible with sanctioned Adventure League events, y'know that which is directly sponsored by WotC?, so we can bury this misunderstanding before it gains any further traction.

Unless anyone's interested in redefining WotC's property for them on its current public presentation? I'm sure they'd be interested in such informal public rebranding of their property to potential customers, no? Any further takers? ;)

Quote from: Warthur;867970The basic PDF pretty much does have the whole of the actual rules though. It doesn't provide all the character options and whatnot but the actual procedures of play are all in there.

I know and I agree personally, but it seems that to some people character options are a very important part of the rules.

Quote from: AsenRG;868082I know and I agree personally, but it seems that to some people character options are a very important part of the rules.

It is an important option to a lot of people. Even back in the day an important reason why alternative RPGs got traction was the fact they had skills or customized sets of abilities. It not important enough to dethrone AD&D as the market leader, but enough to allow other fantasy RPGs to carve out their own niches.

However for the majority the setup of D&D as presented in the D&D 5e basic rule is more than sufficient to have a fun time playing out fantasy adventures.

Quote from: Opaopajr;868079To call it "incomplete," or "psychologically reassuring," is rather strange.

Think of it like a restaurant menu. Some people want the complete menu with all the options for side dishes, add-ons, and customized a la carte choices. Some people are fine with just the prix fixe choices. But even if I'm happy to just use the prix fixe portion of the menu, I still understand that the prix fixe isn't the complete menu.

Quote from: Bren;868091Think of it like a restaurant menu. Some people want the complete menu with all the options for side dishes, add-ons, and customized a la carte choices. Some people are fine with just the prix fixe choices. But even if I'm happy to just use the prix fixe portion of the menu, I still understand that the prix fixe isn't the complete menu.

Bad analogy. Cuisines are too broad. At best that is more like an RPG analog to genre than system core rules.

Prix fixe is a house special grouping of dish courses, but the menu is far broader. The culinary aesthetic and technique engines behind each dish are too varied between courses and dishes to really amalgam into a singular "core set." Thus there is obviously a sense of loss because you are passing up a cuisine's full experience by having a pre-packaged "greatest hits" version.

Now if you left it at a 'ramen noodle house' that would be a better analogy (specifically the more focused ones found in Japan or elsewhere in East Asia). It is essentially the same dish being served, a specific rich broth with egg noodles. Certain garnishments are commonly served, yet different and extra garnishments can be had at a price.

The core rules would be the specific dish itself. The PHB would be the differing condiments or ingredient substitutions to taste. However those condiments and substitutions are selected to not change the integrity of the dish's base, and thus not core unto themselves.

EDIT: a.k.a. A ramen house is not an udon house is not a soba house, as I learned much to my chagrin. The broth and noodle type matter.

Quote from: Opaopajr;868121Prix fixe is a house special grouping of dish courses, but the menu is far broader. The culinary aesthetic and technique engines behind each dish are too varied between courses...

You are way, way overthinking this.

Quote from: Bren;868136You are way, way overthinking this.

You can never overthink food. It is sheer ambrosia.

Quote from: Opaopajr;868272You can never overthink food. It is sheer ambrosia.

Dangit, now I want ambrosia salad.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;868273Dangit, now I want ambrosia salad.

Food. It's just that good. :cool: