Well, I think it's in the name.  "Old" school revival.  Old.  The point of OSR games was to re-introduce the ye olde versions of D&D, as well as two major factors added. 

1.   The game is clarified with better written descriptions of the rules, which are also reorganized to be in more logical places in the various chapters.

2.  The game is changed in slight (or heavy) ways to "fix" the game rules to suit the play style the author wished the original would have used.  They're house rules made into just rules, like not using a race as a class.  Not all OSR games do this, but at this point the faithful adaptations have already been written.  Doing it again is a redundant waste of time.  Most OSRs are modified in some way. 

Eh... I don't see this "demihumans became too strong" thing.

In B/X, elves and dwarves seem to be tougher than fighters, even with level limits and different XP.

In 5e, the variant human was the best race for a long while, until Tasha's I think, that made some kind of snake-men the ubermensch (or maybe Schlangemesch, I'm not good with german )..

Surely there must have been extreme cases in the complete book of elves or 3e or 4e, but it is not a clear progression.

Also, I don't think PCs need to use the same rules as NPCs to explain setting differences. There are more bugs than tigers in the world, just because tigers are stronger doesn't mean they have to rule the world.

The idea that demihumans were handled better in earlier editions of the game is nonsense, though and through. You may have liked it better, and other editions may have handled it badly as well, but every edition tried to address it one way or another, and later editions actually tried to make humans stronger, which earlier editions didn't even do.

Race-as-class is only an illusion. You basically have copies of existing classes with race names and a few extra abilities tucked in. A "dwarf" is still a fighter who's a dwarf . An elf is a fighter-mage called "Elf". Thinking otherwise is squinting to see what you want to see.

Level limits are also a lame and hamfisted way to address the issue, and are only a factor if the group advances that high in level, which isn't a guarantee, and most campaigns don't make it pass 10th level anyways. Till then demihumans are still marginally stronger than humans (no, having Infra/Darkvision and maybe some bonus to hear noises or detect underground constructions doesn't turn you into some sort of killing machine that would drive humanity into extinction), and after that they're only weaker due to artificial show stoppers that restrict demihuman advancement purely for metagame reasons. It's basically bringing others down to seemingly bring humans up, like some sick identity politics thing.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 17, 2022, 12:45:39 PM
Also, I don't think PCs need to use the same rules as NPCs to explain setting differences. There are more bugs than tigers in the world, just because tigers are stronger doesn't mean they have to rule the world.

Bugs and tigers have different ecological niches, though; they're not in competition with one another in any meaningful way. A human community and a demihuman community require more or less the equal amounts of more or less the same types of resources to thrive, and so are in direct competition. Even dwarves, who live underground and so don't take up surface space, are an obstacle to humans building their own mines.

Quote from: Jam The MF on August 16, 2022, 07:53:35 PM
Digging into the OSE Classic Fantasy Rules Tome.  That is a lot of stuff, in one modest little book.  Quite interesting, thus far.  It's my first exposure to 1981 B/X style games.  I've read that the OSR fanbase, is quite fond of B/X?

Because it has all the elements that make classic D&D, classic D&D, and no more. Making it an excellent foundation on which to build your own take. Not so much in terms of publishing anything. But rather for bringing a bit of this and a bit of that for your own campaign i.e. house ruling.

A general rule of thumb is that most classic edition hobbyists like using AD&D stuff (classes, monsters, items, spells, etc.) with B/X rules (combat, exploration, etc.). I don't if it is a majority of classic edition hobbyists but it is a pretty large group. And fits the pattern I observed in my hometown back in the early 80s when it came to AD&D/D&D campaigns. Folks would say they would be running AD&D and only have the AD&D rulebook at the table. But when you look at what they really do to handle combat and other stuff it is in the B/X style.

Although if you plan to publish it works well for that purpose.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on August 17, 2022, 11:43:15 AM
Yeah, this is a good point as well, and one I don't think most fantasy RPGs I've seen address well at all.

My solution was to award human PCs +15% XP bonus. If they qualify for the +5% prime requisites bonus, human PCs are gaining +20% XP over time. In the last 2000s, I ran a number of one-shots and campaigns to see what worked and I tried a couple of numbers to see what was the lowest number to make a difference. +15% proved to be it and actually expressed the fantasy trope of humans being more dynamic than demi-human better accordingly to various groups I tried this out on.

This held true despite the fact that several playable races like elves, the demonic Viridians, Half-Viridians, had clearly mechanical advantages over humans.

Folks can see what it looks like in action with this download
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2010.pdf

I have a fair amount of additions to my Majestic Fantasy RPG rules but my general approach is to add the minimal amount of mechanics to make X happen or to have Y element in the rules. Thus +15% xp bonus for humans.

The only reason I also have a +1 attribute score bonus is because that was thing I tried first. My long-time players were used to getting that and I dislike taking away stuff especially when it had a minimal impact (the +1 bonus to an attribute score).

What inspired me to create these mechanics was an analysis by one of my players that the traditional +5% prime requisite bonus was basically useless given how XP charts worked. And we got to discussing how high a bonus would make a difference and the consensus was +20%. It was during this conversation I got the idea on how to make playing humans more appealing without making radical alterations to the D&D rules.

And as chance would have it +20% was sufficient. I then subtracted the existing +5% prerequisite bonus and came up with the +15% number.

Quote from: estar on August 17, 2022, 02:27:29 PM

And as chance would have it +20% was sufficient. I then subtracted the existing +5% prerequisite bonus and came up with the +15% number.

  A 20% earned XP bonus for humans was tested for 3E, and was still 'current' when the announcement was made and leaks of playtest documents started coming out in August 1999.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on August 17, 2022, 02:46:01 PM
  A 20% earned XP bonus for humans was tested for 3E, and was still 'current' when the announcement was made and leaks of playtest documents started coming out in August 1999.

I wasn't aware of that. At the time most of my on-line RPG time was focused on GURPS and Traveller. Not sure why they would abandon the approach given the response I got when I implemented it.

Quote from: estar on August 17, 2022, 03:20:45 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on August 17, 2022, 02:46:01 PM
  A 20% earned XP bonus for humans was tested for 3E, and was still 'current' when the announcement was made and leaks of playtest documents started coming out in August 1999.

I wasn't aware of that. At the time most of my on-line RPG time was focused on GURPS and Traveller. Not sure why they would abandon the approach given the response I got when I implemented it.

    My guess would be either they wanted to reduce bookkeeping, or they found it didn't interact as expected with the redone advancement tables or the last-minute multiclassing rules.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on August 17, 2022, 01:24:57 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 17, 2022, 12:45:39 PM
Also, I don't think PCs need to use the same rules as NPCs to explain setting differences. There are more bugs than tigers in the world, just because tigers are stronger doesn't mean they have to rule the world.

Bugs and tigers have different ecological niches, though; they're not in competition with one another in any meaningful way. A human community and a demihuman community require more or less the equal amounts of more or less the same types of resources to thrive, and so are in direct competition. Even dwarves, who live underground and so don't take up surface space, are an obstacle to humans building their own mines.

Well, sure, what I'm saying is that "power" isn't the only factor here. Maybe elves have fewer children, or maybe they are less aggressive than humans, or less likely to live in great cities, etc. Maybe dwarves that live outside get bad skin cancer they cannot explain. There could be an immense number of traits that wouldn't affect the individual PC but might affect the species as a whole.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 17, 2022, 03:34:54 PM
Well, sure, what I'm saying is that "power" isn't the only factor here. Maybe elves have fewer children, or maybe they are less aggressive than humans, or less likely to live in great cities, etc. Maybe dwarves that live outside get bad skin cancer they cannot explain. There could be an immense number of traits that wouldn't affect the individual PC but might affect the species as a whole.

And there could be spiritual, and other fantastic reasons that make sense in a fantasy setting as well.

I tell my players, yes there are things that are that good mechanically, paladins for example, but the thing you have to understand there are roleplaying complications that may temper your enthusiasm. Paladin are not free agents, they are holy warriors for their god and thus often doing the bidding of their deity or religion.

When it comes to my published rules, I write stuff like this

QuoteThe backgrounds are not balanced in terms of game mechanics. These rules assume that the setting is dominated by human cultures for a variety of reasons that are part of the setting and not covered by rules mechanics.

Part of the drive of the OSR originally was getting books to allow us to get rules books to play the games.  Many of the rules books were out of print and certain printings did not hold up and fell apart. TSR encouraged for the 2 BX books to be taken apart and put into 3 ring binders (the books were prepunched).

For AD&D 1e/2e, a few of the more memorable retro clones that exist would include Hackmaster, OSRIC, For Gold & Glory, Hyperborea, Adventures Dark & Deep, Castles & Crusades, and Microlite.  Some rather impressive and comprehensive works.  A bit daunting to make a new retro clone for AD&D. Definitely much simpler to do supplemental rules to one of these pre-existing retro clones.

For 0e, Swords & Wizardry tends to be the predominate retro clone. It seems like there is a S&W variant of the week.

Now looking at Basic D&D, TSR published works from 1977 to 1995. The rules books went from 1977's Holmes Edition to 1994's The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game for a total of 12 Core Rules Books.  Quite a span of time and for the most part, the rules in the books interchange with little to no modifications.  One example, if you need a rule for Jousting you have to go to the Companion DM Book for BECMI. BX and Rules Cyclopedia do not have Jousting.  There is a lot of opportunities to make rule changes to Basic D&D. For example, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, OSE Advanced, and BX Advanced all bring AD&D components into BX.

The Basic D&D rules just have many areas and opportunities to create a new OSR rules set.

Level limits for demihumans work about as well as enforcing age restrictions along with downtime periods measured in years or decades when humans are in the game.

Quote from: bx corgi on August 18, 2022, 01:46:45 AM
Definitely much simpler to do supplemental rules to one of these pre-existing retro clones.

The problem is that there are no AD&D 1e clones that are 100% open content. OSRIC is the closest but half of it is only shared under the OSRIC license which imposes the restriction that the user can't quote more than a certain amount from the text. This is prevent from someone from taking the text of OSRIC and altering it.

Quote from: bx corgi on August 18, 2022, 01:46:45 AM
For 0e, Swords & Wizardry tends to be the predominate retro clone. It seems like there is a S&W variant of the week.

That because
-Matt made it 100% open content as well as the accompanying monster book.
-There is a nice formatted doc file.
-It pretty much an ur-D&D and has what makes classic D&D, classic D&D no more and no less.

Rob's Notes: what most people consider to be classic D&D first appeared as OD&D + Greyhawk Supplement I. OD&D 3 LBBs only plays differently enough to have its own feel and balance.

Quote from: bx corgi on August 18, 2022, 01:46:45 AM
The Basic D&D rules just have many areas and opportunities to create a new OSR rules set.

It is an excellent foundation if an author has a specific creative vision for a D&D based system. I personally used Swords & Wizardry, Core as the foundation for my Majestic Fantasy RPG.

The flip side of that is that because the B/X skeleton is so simple, it's easy to build on top of, and easy to maintain compatibility across products from different designers.