OSR, as a product descriptor, should tell me something about the product being described.  If I am browsing through DTRPG and come across a product labeled OSR, that should tell me something substantive and useful about what the product is.  If it refers to one of several different, not compatible games that fall under the nebulous category of old school games, then it utterly fails to fulfill its basic function.  It doesn't actually tell me anything about the product it is being used to describe.  There needs to be some way to determine what is and, more importantly, is not an OSR product.  Otherwise, OSR as a category is meaningless and OSR as a product descriptor is completely worthless.     

Just to mix things up with a hot take: Is fictional racism wrong outside the context of modern politics? Because one of the fundamental strengths of fiction is being able to treat things allegorically as opposed to literally. And even when taken literally kind sticking with kind is the norm in nature. Regardless groups have to be a color of some kind, allegory needs clear identifiers, and hateful groups aren't likely to tolerate diversity.

So what do?

Quote from: KindaMeh on May 24, 2024, 01:36:09 PMDude, I hate racial essentialism. As well as any discrimination on the basis of any born identity. REH's thoughts on racial essentialism are not my own nor do I condone them. So I guess we're in agreement on that.

I only put that in there because jhkim was saying I didn't think he or his works were influenced by that kind of thought, which is to say biological essentialist racism. I thought I made it pretty clear. Apparently not.

It all depended on whether we were focusing on the author or their work, which @jhkim made exceptionally if not deliberately difficult to determine. Of course REH's racism influenced his work. Who cares? Of course REH's story about a global race war was racist. Who cares? The only thing relevant was the possible racism in Conan, which @jhkin eventually provided a (solid) example of.

Quote from: Brad on May 25, 2024, 08:49:00 AMHis alleged racism, real or nonexistent, is entirely immaterial to any discussion about fucking nerdy elf games.

Agreed.

Quote from: Brad on May 25, 2024, 08:49:00 AMSo basically, fuck them and if you think it's tiresome that people are saying REH's racism doesn't matter, maybe start with the root cause and kill all the commies; the problems would magically disappear.

Magically indeed.

The idea that it's worth the cost, let alone even possible, to eliminate everyone who adopts an opposing ideology is precisely the delusional thinking behind this retarded culture war.

Quote from: jhkim on May 25, 2024, 11:54:45 AMCan a story be racist? No, but the characters in the story can be and sometimes must be in order to have an effective story.

If characters in a story are racist, does that mean the author is racist? No, because that same logic would indicate that any horror writer must be a murderous sociopath since they write about them.

In this case however the author has both included racist themes in their work as well as expressed racists views in their personal correspondence.

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 27, 2024, 01:01:00 AMWhy?

I know you feel obligated to repeat this often, but what benefit is there in isolating the OSR from any other game system that came out during that time? Why does it have to be D&D based only? is this some kind of One True Wayism for you? I ask, because this honestly looks like you are trying to protect some kind of marketing brand recognition you find in the acronym OSR.

OSR just means "based on and broadly compatible with TSR era D&D". If I buy an OSR product, and it's actually basically Warhammer Fantasy, I'm not going to be happy because that's not what OSR means. It's not just a marketing term, its informative.

And yes, I know people call Zweihander OSR, they're wrong.

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 26, 2024, 03:49:22 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on May 25, 2024, 10:31:21 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 25, 2024, 09:59:54 AMI can't speak for the OP but I don't think point buy (or skills, or feats, or combat maneuvers) is in any way incompatible to the OSR.

When I say "compatibility with TSR" I do not mean theoretically, I'm actually running classic TSR modules and I don't want to do much conversion during the game. I also use old school monster manuals and encounter tables. This all despite of not running any TSR game (I use my own retroclone, Dark Fantasy Basic).

Of course, there are few "hard lines", since TSR contains many variations: roll high, roll low, 1d20, 2d6, 1d100, additional abilities (comeliness), race as class or separated, sci-fi aspects and entire games, NWP, WP, etc.

But the more conversion you need the farther you are.

Here is a curious example from Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/1d06tya/can_anyone_weigh_in_on_whether_our_game_is_osr_or/

Old school is comprised of more than just older TSR games. A tweaked clone of Traveler qualifies as old school IMHO.

Old School, definitely. OSR, no. OSR is based on D&D. As I pointed out, Traveller has its own third-party old-school movement these days, and that's great. But it is its own separate thing.

Why?

I know you feel obligated to repeat this often, but what benefit is there in isolating the OSR from any other game system that came out during that time? Why does it have to be D&D based only? is this some kind of One True Wayism for you? I ask, because this honestly looks like you are trying to protect some kind of marketing brand recognition you find in the acronym OSR.

Another game so obscure even I forgot about it. Neoclassical Geek Revival. Definitely not OSR, but an extension of it. A lot of very interesting rules, a cool action economy, awesome initiative system, and most of its class abilities are about messing with it. I just need to figure out how to teach it to people so I can get it to the table, because it has a lot of weird differences if your used to D&D and the like.

Quote from: Naburimannu on May 26, 2024, 03:03:22 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 26, 2024, 12:00:33 AM

Quote from: jhkim on May 24, 2024, 01:51:49 PM.....

I've got to ask why you keep posting here. You never argue in good faith and usually choose whatever the most woke position possible is in order to cause division. Is that your purpose? To frustrate the forum users of this Bastion of Free Speech so that they throw their hands up in disgust and leave? Is your goal to destroy worthwhile conversation here to the point that it no longer is an actual forum for discussion?

jhkim is usually arguing in better faith than half the opposition... But the loud voices seem to win, or shout him down, too often.

Well, we've just seen this before, a lot. It has been jhkim's modus operendi for years now.

I am more than happy to engage someone in a discussion where we have a difference of opinion based upon intellectual honesty. I in particular have enjoyed debating the merits of WEG d6 Star Wars vs FFGs Star Wars with tenbones, but he didn't cherry pick his sources or outright lie about his experiences.

Quote from: Naburimannu on May 26, 2024, 03:03:22 PMI think I've said before how I've lost players from my work game by having the least hint of anti-PC racism; I'm a little more hopeful this time, since the player who was told "Hey, tieflings are by-the-book subject to pretty strong prejudice and abuse, and <here's their exact status in this world that helps explain how that evolved, whether or not it's justified>" went ahead to play one anyway, (ab)using 5e's easy cantrips to at least gesture towards hiding his nature in causal interactions even knowing it'll slip out over long contact.

But these players are still a bit sensitive to standard-to-my-expectations xenophobia / fantasy racism. Dwarves overly proud of their backwater town? Humans scorning the dwarven merchants for being over-focused on profit and not willing to stay around for the feast day? (That last one was meant to be purely cultural, but they saw the racial lens fit too...) We'll see how they shake out, particularly if they start exploring more the goblin vs dwarf divide.

See, what you are introducing here is, IMHO, not a problem with your gamemastering or the material but a problem with the players that you have in your game. If they are so fragile that they are turned off of a game due to fantasy racism or culturalism in the game setting, then how will they react in Real Life? Would they fail an American Literature course because they refused to read Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn since it has the n-word in it or Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird since it has the n-word in it?

Quote from: RPGPundit on May 26, 2024, 03:47:59 AMBecause point-buy leads to extreme min-maxing and "charbuild optimization", which turns out to be contrary to compatibiilty. Having randomly-rolled ability scores, and not being able to "purchase" skills or feat to taste, means that compatibility is maintained.

How does min-maxing and optimization break OSR compatibility? OSR games have never been finely balanced like the 4e style wargames. Having a character with optimized stats isn't going to break the game any more than rolling an extraordinarily strong character would. I agree that it breaks with the spirit of OSR to some degree, but I don't see where it breaks mechanical compatibility.

Quote from: WERDNA on May 22, 2024, 04:08:59 PM

Quote from: Omega on May 22, 2024, 03:30:02 PMThe dark elves in Skeleton Knight were changed from lavender skilled to pretty much standard elf fair complexion because of woke pressure.

Proofs? That doesn't even make sense from their perspective.

By... you know. Reading the lite novel and then looking at the character in the anime.

QuoteHer lilac colored skin was crystal smooth; her long hair white as snow.

Though to be fair. The book cover art shows her fair skinned as well. So WTF? Maybe it was just the anime basing her skin off the book covers?

Theres been rumors though of Disney planning on applying pressure on anime to force it more woke. Would not surprise me at all if its true.

Quote from: El-V on May 25, 2024, 05:50:37 PMIn my view early WOTC under Sean Reynolds ruined much of the feel of Greyhawk by making it too much like the FR - for example, every village seemed to be fully lit by continual light spells due to the presence of a retired 12th level wizard. Some of Reynold's stuff was good, but most of it felt too FR and wrong for Greyhawk.

Clearly WOTC have no inclination to do Greyhawk in the Gygaxian style.

Post-Gygax TSR did that to about every setting eventually. BX's Known World exploded into Mystara where every hex was filled in and the magic gradually escalated. Forgotten Realms became increasingly higher fantasy and more and more of the map filled in. Greyhawk, even Gamma World and Zebulonns Guide.

Quote from: Valatar on May 26, 2024, 10:34:33 PMThat's all beside the point that the writer of the article, by showing himself to be too fragile to read something extremely mild like Conan, or by being unable to read it and take away that it held anything of value, I'm unsure which from the guy's writing, his opinions are safe to completely disregard.  His take on Conan as "no beauty, no grace, no romance—just blood, brutality, butchery, and overt racism" is either willfully ignorant or lying, depending on whether he ever read a single page of it.

Makes you wonder how bad the rest of the book is.