In 2008, Gary Gygax died and the Fourth Edition of D&D appeared. Both were lamented by players of older editions of D&D. Calls to "take back our hobby!" began and talk of an "Old-School movement" grew into assertions. The blog race was on to identify the genetic code of early D&D rules and practices that would resuscitate the Original Way of gaming. For a couple of years, there was a lot of energy and debate about what that would mean.
In 2010, the first OSR blog devoted to slandering other OSR bloggers and OSR game designers began. It is so foul that I'm not giving a link to it. Others followed in spirit. OSR trolls appeared, too, some individuals who have spent years of their lives leaving nasty remarks on OSR blogs. As I looked into the development of the OSR, the same names would come up again and again spewing negativity. This kind of contentiousness slowly came to characterize the OSR movement, as its own participants would describe it (below).
In 2011, bloggers started talking about the death of the OSR and the commercialization of the movement and what that would mean for OSR.
In 2012, talk continued about whether the OSR was dying. There was the sense that it had achieved its goals already. So what would it mean now? More OSR products, as long as they were not from Wizards of the Coast. It was no longer about recovering D&D. It was about DIY gaming under an "old-school" D&D umbrella.
At the end of the year, one of the founders of the OSR, James Maliszewski, stopped writing his Grognardia blog. The knives came out the next year as fellow gamers skewered him for not delivering the megadungeon he promised, despite his personal problems.
In 2013, there was evidence of still more discussion about the death of the OSR.
In 2014, D&D 5th edition came out. Subsequent discussions considered whether 5e is an OSR game, could be used for an OSR game, or was influenced by the OSR scene.
In 2015, the new edition of D&D appeared in renewed discussion about the death of the OSR. This spurred some reactions.
In 2017, signs of heated spats between OSR authors showed up. Also, Frank Mentzer, one of the revered BECMI D&D designers and a crony of Gygax, was accused of sexual harassment and more.
In 2018, the fractiousness continued. For example, one OSR blogger ended his blog because of perceived politicization of the OSR. OSR commentators revealed how correct he was by their mean-spirited responses to his calling it quits. An OSR artist "withdrew" because of "the toxicity of the scene." Wherever one stands on the individuals involved, the point is that the nastiness of the OSR community was recognized by its own participants.
At the beginning of 2019, one blogger observed that the OSR was "fractured, fragmented, and splintered." A month later, one hitherto highly regarded, but contentious, OSR designer was accused of rape. The scandal prompted OSR folks to take sides and to repent of their relationships over the subsequent months.
G+ was a Google-based social network that had been home to much of the OSR interaction for several years. It was also the medium for rifts between OSR participants. When it closed up in March 2019, players scattered to other, mutually antagonistic forums that trash-talked each other. OSR now had political sides riven by bitter mutual imprecations. By the middle of the year, players were talking about "post-OSR" and posing alternatives.
In August, one blogger's advice was to "Kill the OSR." More discussion of the death of the OSR ensued. Was it dead? Or not, not, not, not!
At the end of 2019, one blogger pointed out at length that OSR now meant mutually contradictory things. By including variant meanings, this differed from most other blog posts and messages, recurring since 2008, that attempted to define what was really OSR. OSR had become incoherent ("amorphous"), not only socially, but with respect to its meaning.
In 2020, the man in charge of Judges Guild, one of the "old-school" companies that had designed RPG supplements since the '70s, was acknowledged as racist. Designers had already begun actively to distance themselves from the OSR. For example, Joseph Goodman, of Goodman Games, publisher of Dungeon Crawl Classics, stated that DCC was simply not an OSR game. But DCC included an appendix with a list of OSR blogs to follow for inspiration. This was a change in stance. Another OSR game designer basically said that his game is only OSR by association, and that the OSR has become balkanized and that the label OSR "has started to lose traction."
Internet trolls. Bullying. Allegations of rape. Racism. Political divisions. Spats and name-calling and mutual recriminations. A fractured movement of fantasy gaming that has been declared dead, over and over, for nine years.
I have simply offered links to some of what OSR gamers have said. I could have given more links to all of these unpleasant aspects of the OSR, but these are enough.
This is how the OSR movement looks to a veteran gamer who has returned to playing role-playing games only several months ago. You don't have to search far to find this kind of thing.
What does the OSR have to offer old gamers like me or new gamers like my kids in 2020?
I guess you just had to be there!
We're now in the Post-OSR. We are POSRs. There's still a lot of great stuff going on and a lot of admixture of proper old school content with design evolution and influence from other streams. I think we'll see some very cool stuff in the next few years.
ReplyDeleteCool content will keep appearing. Tribal labels will hinder people from finding it.
DeleteThe OSR may be "dead" to some, but it's still a damn sight better than 3rd or 4th edition D&D.
ReplyDeleteWe offer an objectively superior play-style. Human nature eventually rears its ugly head, and that seems to get more attention than sandbox campaigns or simplistic mechanics. #FuchsiaLivesMatter
The alternatives are not OSR vs 3rd and 4th edition D&D. There are hundreds of other games.
DeleteWhen it comes to D&D, there's old school and whatever category (new school?) 3rd and 4th edition was. Obviously, there are RPGs that have nothing to do with D&D. And yet... there's still the traditionalist versus story-game dichotomy. Choose a side or save versus death!
DeleteMy stance has always been that of vague indifference to the OSR "community", excited wonder at the things it produces, and staunch refusal to make any metaposts, rantposts, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe nice thing about OSR is that it is so loose and unorganized that any shittiness is/seems to be localized to certain people. You can grab whatever content you want, support whomever, all while (very easily) avoiding bad eggs. Not everyone has to come out to condemn, make ill-advised statements, or back up those bad eggs, because we aren't a group, and some of us have never even interacted with them!
Current OSR is a beautiful mess of remixes, pidgins, and houserules. OSR is really more like a common tongue, a common understanding of aptitude, and a few vague metaphilosophies, all of which make it incredibly easy to make content (which is the goal of all this, I think). Someone says "Sentient Hologram, 2HD, Attacks 2, shapeshift" and we know what that means, and can run it effectively. Someone says "Fungus Eye Magus, 1 magic dice/level, saves as cleric, divination and necromancy spells" and we can each individually write up what we think that means, even in systems without magic dice or saving throw progression. It becomes a way of creating and sharing ideas.
I've never seen or experienced most of the foul and rotten things you've here written about. But I'm still young, and I don't generally go looking.
I think your approach is healthy. And I'm glad you stopped in to give your view and to represent those like you.
DeleteI went looking to see what this Old-School Renaissance was because I played a *lot* in the old days to which the OSR refers, but when I returned to playing, I found a distorting mirror reflection of early D&D in the OSR instead of a revival of the hobby's early days. And as I investigated how that came to be, I found a lot of people who were deeply involved in defining the Right Way to play in the name of a past imagined more by omission than by recovery. And there has been a lot of antagonism amongst them. I decided to put my findings in order, because... honestly, because I'm a historian, and that is how I look at things. It can help to make sense of why things are the way they are, and making sense of it for myself is why I started this.
It seems you are right to call the OSR a Common Tongue, but I would add that it's a *D&D* common tongue. The minimal stats you mention are good for versions of D&D, but not so much for other fantasy games. I can use the concept "Fungus Eye Magus," but I have to re-stat everything I borrow for my own game as it is. I'm not complaining about that--it's my preference to use other systems, and it's not hard to translate--but my point about this Common Tongue is just that OSR really is not about "old-school," it's mostly about new versions of D&D that benefit from the OGL. Jettison the D&D stats (as I do) and Fantasy Role-Playing Games is the next common denominator. That was the name for this before players got so annoyed at the Fourth Edition that they started a subculture just to reject it.
The part of the OSR movement that leaves little record is the actual games. On May 4 I wrote about the unwritten history of role-playing games. I think that's the part that outsiders to the OSR, like me, will never understand about it. I am quite sure that there are many wonderful OSR games that people actually play, hours and hours of enjoyment, and they'll read the historically-oriented and retrospective stuff I write and say, "Who the hell cares what Van Winkle thinks about it? We are having fun!" And I will say that they are absolutely right.
Also, I really like your Vernal World post.
I too kept a healthy distance from OSR discussions. I like some of the games and adventures, and some of the theorising was interesting and occasionally useful, but the more I read from and about the OSR, the less inclined to engage with it I became (other than actually playing). There was too much vitriol and false nostalgia, which combined into a prescriptivism rivalling that of Dogme 95's 'Vows of Chastity'.
DeleteI, for one, am very pleased with the fragmentation of the OSR. Unlike Pilgrim Procession and Alea iactanda est I like talking with people about gaming. The splits in the OSR have meant that I can now talk to people with a similar game aesthetic to me - or a different one for that matter - and avoid a lot of trolling and rancour because by and large those people don't go to the same sites as me.
ReplyDeleteBefore the split I had learned not to express, for example, the heresy that the gamers I knew back in the day didn't actually play that way. Or to tell people that I run, and play in, a 4e game, notwithstanding that we run it essentially the same way we ran AD&D games 40 years ago.
Now I get to rub elbows with really pleasant people who play LBB, B/X, BECMI, 1e, 2e, 3e, PF, and 5e. And without all the noise it turns out we pretty much run our games the same way.
We have lost some things. I really liked some of the new ideas that came out of the OSR, and there are now sites where I like the gaming content but had to leave because of the political content. And losing Dungeon of Signs was a blow, and I am really sad that Courtney Campbell has deleted nearly all of the content at Hack and Slash, because I miss his analyses regarding agency. But the OSR and OSR-adjacent blogs I still visit are much more pleasant places to be.
Thanks for stopping in and stating your view! I don't know why I find it all so interesting to see how role-playing game cultures are evolving, but I do.
DeleteThe very fact that you drew flak by telling people you run 4e is an illustration of what I've been describing. It also accords with Alea iactanda est's point about prescriptive gaming.
I appreciate your recollection that gaming back in the day was not what is called "old-school" today. That's what I keep harping about, so it's encouraging that I'm not the only one who remembers it differently from the story that's been told.
If D&D gamers can get over the truly minor variations between editions, will they then rub elbows with the other gamers who play Tunnels & Trolls, GURPS, Fate, Fighting Fantasy, etc.? There is a lot of lore to be learned out there and a lot of possibilities.
I think my experience was a lot like yours, other than the fact that we mostly played AD&D, with a little Rolemaster and Gamma World thrown in from time to time.
DeleteI do remember how pissed off I got at Gygax’ rants in Dragon Magazine; it was pretty clear he wouldn’t have liked what we did with his game. I’m older now than he was then, but I still think of him as a pompous old fart. Although he did seem to find some humility in his later years, and was actually quite pleasant in the Q&As he hosted toward the end of his life.
Yeah, that's a good point about perspective. I'm older now, too, than Gygax was then...
DeleteShrug, there is still a large group of hobbyists playing, promoting, and publishing for classic editions of D&D including myself
ReplyDeleteThat's good! People should play what they want to play.
DeleteOSR has produced a ton of great content and, more importantly, has greatly enhanced my understanding of what makes for a fun game. My games are infinitely better now than in the 3e era and I credit OSR commentary with that.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that comes up over and over when I ask about the OSR is the adventures. There are certain adventures that people just adore.
DeleteOne aspect of the OSR that I simply can't understand, because of my personal experience, is what 3e and 4e did so badly. To me, it's all just D&D--six stats 3-18, levels, hit dice and hit points per level, AC avoids hits, alternating blows, spells you forget, dwarves/elves/halflings, alignment...
Thanks for stating your stance, Simon. I'm convinced by you and others that the OSR produced a lot of fun. At the same time, I'd never encourage my kids to get involved with it, for the reasons I stated here.
My hypothesis is that most of the hate for 3e/4e stems more from the way it was presented than from the systems themselves. The modules from this period are unrelenting railroads (not only for the players, but also for the DM) and were also hopelessly overwritten. I think people take the mode of play presented in the modules and conflate it with the mode of play required by the system.
DeleteReading between the lines, there also appears to be a visceral reaction to anything that appears to hamper the DM’s control over the game. This includes having a simple core mechanic that applies to almost any situation a DM is likely to encounter, and having many character options that appear give players more control over their characters’ rate of advancement and power level. This generally isn’t true because (a) DM’s don’t have to follow the rules if they don’t work for a situation and (b) even if you are following the rules, you can usually achieve the result you want if you understand the system well.
Which brings up another point. You don’t have the same level of system mastery if you try a new system. If you are used to having your players toll a d6 to open a door, and now you have to figure out or look up an appropriate target DC based on the difficulty of the dungeon, that is an additional cognitive load. Which I think is why you often hear OSR gamers, who through decades of play have completely internalized their 40 subsystems and deeply complex initiative systems, referring to their favourite system as “rules light” and calling systems with a simple core mechanic that works the same way in every situation “rules heavy”. Which brings us back to my second point, because it is easier to have control over your game if you have mastery of your system.
But I think that the system mastery problem could have been overcome if the game, through its modules, had been presented in a fashion that emulated the early TSR “classic” modules. Because then old DMs would have had examples of how to apply the new mechanics to their playstyle. If there had been even one module like T1 or B2 early in either edition, I think there would have been a lot less whining. 4e actually had a couple of decent modules (among hundreds of crappy ones), but they came long after the grognards had already written off the system.
All that being said, I do think that all the naval-gazing over OSR systems did spark a few really useful discussions about how to use system to achieve particular results in your game. Like Simon, I think my game is better because of the OSR content I have absorbed over the years. If you can find the good stuff, it is worth reading.
Beoric, I see your point about the difference between rules-lite and rules-fluent. I have thought about it and you put it well. For experienced GURPS players (like me), for example, the rules are intuitive and they don't seem heavy at all. That's rules fluency on my part. My wife, who is a novice gamer, goes cross-eyed looking at GURPS, which seems to have overwhelming detail.
DeleteD&D 3e became more rules-lite, it seems, in the sense that it created a streamlined and universal core mechanic, but older DMs were no longer rules-fluent in the new D&D, which aroused the visceral reactions to which you refer.
Two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Much of the OSR is gamers going back to the games of their childhood and playing them the way they think they should have played them with the benefit of hindsight. This is a good thing, but nobody should think his (and it's almost always a "his") way is Gary's One True Way.
2. The OSR started during D&D 3e as interesting alternatives, the backlash is mostly against 4e. That edition started off with a pitch that earlier editions had sucked, which brought the usual backlash. As a system, 4e was hyper-focused on a style of play that revolved around combat and character builds (down to players picking the preferred magic items they would like to get), with the weird dissociated mechanics and powers per encounter that broke immersion. It was also focused on railroad adventures, as was Pathfinder and a lot of later 3e; that didn't help matters, either. Wizards thought it, like many in the OSR, had come up with the One True Way; instead, they were too clever by half.
As an unrelated aside, you are absolutely right about the universal mechanic in 3e making the game more rules-lite, and I wish many old-schoolers would understand this. Yes, this made it easy for folks to add loads of rules subsystems, which added to the perception that 3e was rules-heavy.
Thanks, Charles, for these good points. I'd add a reminder to readers that it was not just the bad reactions to disliked editions of D&D that spurred the OSR. The Open Game License was the gateway of the OSR. I think it's sometimes assumed that the OSR was just an explosion of creativity connected with the Original Authentic character of their inspirational materials. Rather, the OGL triggered the D&D revival. Wizards of the Coast cornered amateur creativity through the OGL. Other systems (which, in my opinion, are mostly superior) were marginalized. The OSR painted itself into an OD&D corner because of the license, and only with the political and cultural fragmentation of the OSR are some game creators getting out of it. The OSR is the result of a combination of the OGL and the medium of the internet. We wrote *so much* fun game stuff in the old days, but we mostly never dreamed of publishing it. Now sharing is a click away. Too bad about the vitriol.
DeleteSee, this is what I was talking about above. It isn’t 4e’s system that was “hyper-focused on a style of play that revolved around combat and character builds”. The modules were hackfests, just like 3e. The character builds were an outgrowth of having some character options, and combinations of options, be better than others; the same issue arose in 3e, which also had character optimization boards. Character optimization was never required by the system, or even suggested, and many people never optimized. From the DM’s perspective, outside of organized play you were always at liberty not to allow certain options or combinations or source material; PHB-only games were quite common. Letting PCs choose their preferred magic items was a suggestion from one source which was not even followed in the modules (I believe it may have been followed in organized play, but only during character creation of characters above first level).
DeleteWhat 4e did do was create a robust system for adjudication of tactical combat. Which is why I like it. This does not mean the game “revolves around combat” any more than any other version of D&D, all of which are pretty focussed on combat. It does mean that tactical decisions made by players and DMs matter. 4e combat requires player skill. I have players who are optimizers that regularly get their asses handed to them, and players who don’t care about optimization but regularly fight circles around the optimizers. I get why that might not be for everyone, but criticize the system for what it actually does, not because of some bromide.
I usually run old TSR modules, so my games have as much or as little combat as you would expect from those modules. I use treasure tables that are a riff off of 1e. If they want something special, they will have to quest for it, just like in my old 1e game. I let my players optimize, but if they want that cool power/feat combo they are going to have to find someone to teach it to them. (This much I learned from Gary, and many re-readings of the DMG: everything a player wants is a potential hook). None of those elements of my playstyle require a houserule of any sort. (I mean, I have houserules, I used to play 1e after all, but I don’t need them to make those things work.)
Yes, 4e did have some dissociated mechanics. Like hit points; the idea of characters making decisions based on how many hits they think they can take from a longsword is ludicrous. But I will admit that martial daily powers were a turnoff for some, although later on there were options for not using them. I mean, other than the option to play almost any other character.
Beoric, I'm sure you can make any edition of D&D feel like any other, particularly because it's all D&D. I'm afraid that those who dislike 4e are not going to be swayed, however, and you'll have to let them have their preferences.
DeleteI like that you point out that hit points are a dissociated mechanic.
Fair enough. I don't actually care if anyone likes the edition; its the disinformation that irks me.
DeleteIt created a system hyper-focused on a style of play that revolved around combat and character builds. And the combats were repetitive, boring slogs. Hit points are NOT dissociated mechanics; it's obvious that you don't understand what is meant by the term.
DeleteYou may have a different opinion than I on 4e, but that doesn't let you accuse me of lying, jackass. Apologize; calling my post "disinformation" in uncalled-for. I don't care that you like the edition; it's the common decision of 4e fans to insult and accuse that bothers me.
And character build optimization was encouraged by the edition. I even gave an example: "down to players picking the preferred magic items they would like to get." That's a form of build optimization implicit.
DeleteDear readers: I rest my case.
ReplyDeleteYou know, you didn't have to publish his comment calling me a liar. It's your blog, but that's smug.
DeleteI don't like to block responses. I haven't seen one yet that is so offensive as to make me block it, but the day may arrive.
DeleteBeoric did not call you a liar. He said disinformation, which I interpreted as meaning he thinks you are mistaken. Unlike me, he plays 4e, and he has a point of view about it. You did call him a jackass, but you did not complain that I published your comment.
You two are referring to each other's ideas about the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and seeming to get angry about it. I find it interesting, because it's exactly the kind of negativity that this entry was about, on a small scale. I think I'm entitled to say, "This illustrates the point," because it does.
I have nothing against you. If anything, I'm happy you stopped in to make your points. I don't think you are a liar. I'd like for us to be friends.
"Disinformation" on Wiktionary:
DeleteIntentionally false information disseminated to deliberately confuse or mislead.
Merriam-Webster:
false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth
As I said in a private comment, I have some credentials on this term. He may not intended it to mean "lying," but that is the dictionary definition.
I didn't complain that you published his comment. I complained that when you said "I rest my case," that was smug, and you had contributed to the matter. If these arguments bother you, IT'S YOUR BLOG. YOU CAN STEP IN AND STOP THEM.
As for calling him a "jackass," he had just accused me of lying. Again, you published my comment. (You didn't publish the one I made right afterwards, incidentally, which rebutted one of his points.) You didn't have to do that, either. That was my point; you didn't have to do that if these things bother you.
I like your blog, and have nothing against you, either. But I'm pointing out a blind spot: if you don't like something, don't enable it.
There's no interpretation of "disinformation" that means he thinks I am mistaken. For example, from Merriam-Webster:
Delete"false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth"
or Wiktionary:
"Intentionally false information disseminated to deliberately confuse or mislead."
If he meant to say I am mistaken (which I'm not; I played in a 4e campaign back in 2009, which makes his complaining about non-core books amusing since most didn't exist when I played it) then he should use words that mean "mistaken," because the definition of "disinformation" and its common use do clearly mean deliberate lies. So, given the word, I think "lying" is an appropriate interpretation and "mistaken" is not. Then again, he seems to think hit points are a dissociated mechanic, which the originator of the phrase "dissociated mechanic" (Justin Alexander) has said is not true at all many times. As an example:
"Similarly, the Hit Die mechanics (which randomize the number of hit points each character gains at each level) aren’t dissociated, either. They model — through a randomizer — the varying degrees of improvement the two characters have experienced. Do hit points represent an abstraction? Yes. Is that abstraction dissociated? When you’re talking about 3rd Edition, not particularly."
I have nothing against you and like the post, which is why I'm here.
Well.
Delete@Charles Saeger, I **am** sorry I chose the word "disinformation" instead of "misinformation". I believe that you believe that what you are saying is true.
@LVW, sorry I blew up your comments section. I didn't mean to, but I really should have known better.
Beoric, it's nice of you to apologize, but honestly, there have been zero hard feelings on my part. It's just a blog, after all. I sincerely don't mind if you disagree about things you care about. I am interested in your view. I'm learning all the time about things I missed.
DeleteThank you, Beoric. I do apologize for calling you a jackass based on that now. The term isn't "misinformation," either; it's saying I'm "wrong."
DeleteHaving said that, I'm going to say something: I didn't say anything factually incorrect. Our differences are purely opinion; it does chafe me a bit to have someone promote opinion as fact. I'm going to rebut some points:
Delete* "It isn’t 4e’s system that was “hyper-focused on a style of play that revolved around combat and character builds”." This may come as a shock to you, but many of us who criticized 4e actually played it. As I said, I played in a face-to-face campaign in 2009, in part to see if my criticisms held up (they did); I also played an automated Facebook game in 2011 or thereabouts. I don't take the latter as meaningful other than to have taught me the mechanics better (and a few were changed; cyclical initiative was back, for example).
* Having some character options better than others does lead to optimization. Believe it or not, it was intentional. Monte Cook once said (I think on his site, likely somewhere in the Internet Archive) that Toughness intentionally sucked as a character option to reward system mastery. 3e did this; 4e made this worse by taking out the pure role-play items like the Craft skill. 4e also made optimization more of a focus by allowing retraining, which first appeared as an optional rule in late 3e in 2006's DMGII. (It's a book I really liked, but when I read the retraining rules, I blanched in horror and knew I'd never permit it. Then one of my players, a known optimizer whose saving grace was that he was bad at optimization, brought it up when looking at the book with a hopeful tone—which I cut off.) The decision to let players pick their magic items is another example of optimization that's outright encouraged in the DMG (p. 125).
* The game is more focused on combat than other versions of D&D. Why do I say this? The characters were built using powers whose orientation was combat. Of the At-Will/Encounter/Daily/Utility powers, only the last one was non-combat, and specifically so (and even many of those powers had combat focus; they just didn't have an associated attack). You didn't even get one until 2nd level. The non-combat spells were turned into rituals, which I actually like and am glad stayed in 5e, but does encourage combat since it no longer means there's a competition between memorizing Sleep or Comprehend Languages.
* I don't think combat in 4e requires player skill any more than any other version of D&D. In fact, all the combat options added in 3e and later make player skill less needed, not more. OD&D, which had almost no combat options, required far more player skill in combat than any later edition because of that.
* "Dissociated mechanics" do not include hit points, as I quoted above. They're an abstraction, as in every other version of D&D; that's different. An example of a dissociated mechanic would be Piercing Smite (PHB p. 92). What in-world explanation is there for the paladin getting to mark extra targets as part of an attack? The only reason for something like this is game balance. Likewise, combining minions and damage-on-a-miss leads to meta gaming to an extreme degree.
* On the fighter … what if I just want to join a game and fight a bit with low buy-in? It's not that the fighter no longer has this option, it's that this option no longer exists in the system. (I confess to not perusing Essentials much; it seemed like it was in there, but the very existence of the Essentials line was to try to salvage the game line).
* This isn't an optimization issue and is more of a personal peeve, but why was there extra options for every kind of armor with really stupid (IMHO) and attempting-at-being-badass names?
That's fine. I call it "misinformation" because I see the same old saws over and over again, repeated like retweets from a politician's thumbs, and often by people who haven't even played in a single campaign in 2009.
DeleteI may be a bit sensitive, I've had to justify my existence in order to participate in OSR space for a lot of years now. Even in places where I'm well known, some noob will join and I'll have to do it all over again.
When someone makes a statement about about how 4e definitely for sure runs, they are impliedly making a statement about how my campaign runs, and how my table runs, and its hard not to take that personally. I've been running and playing D&D since 1979, and running and playing 4e since at least 2010, and analyzing and fiddling with mechanics that whole time. I think I've got a pretty good handle on how it works in relation to other editions, and I shouldn't have to prove my cred any more than anyone else.
I'm sorry, Charles, for any hurt you have received. Nobody should have implied that you are a liar about the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Nobody should regard my publication of other people’s comments here as suggesting that you are, in fact, a person who lies about Dungeons & Dragons. You are right that there is a distinction between misinformation and disinformation, as you clarified to me in the message that you asked me not to publish and in the new one.
ReplyDeleteIf, by publishing your own earlier remarks, such as the one you sent in, to the effect that Beoric is a jackass, I have enabled something bad, I am willing to take personal responsibility for your words, if you wish. Although you wrote it, I did click "publish." As you forcefully pointed out to me, "IT'S [MY] BLOG." Rest assured that I will apologize to Beoric if he feels slighted by my publication of the words you submitted, for which I now assume sole responsibility.
Also, whoops, readers, I missed the prompt to publish one of Charles' rebuttals, which he just mentioned here. Apparently, these prompts get folded together when they come two in a row. It was an honest mistake, but I have rectified it now by publishing his remark beginning "And character build optimization..." Please take heed.
I would like readers to know that I will not refuse to publish other people's replies merely because I don't like them. People can send replies that disagree with me. I may choose not to reply in turn, but I find those ones especially interesting and informative.
I realized something through a combination of reading this post, and reading through the pan-OSR Palace of the Silver Princess rewrite that I sent to you.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I realized is that the Palace of the Silver PRincess rewrite isn't that good. A lot of it is a slog, and I gave up after about 20 pages.
The other thing I realized, in conjuction: There is a secret metahobby at work. A lot of the OSR, and the DIY-D&D movement figures, aren't necessarily good at running games or creating game content. They're good at arguing on the internet, in the specific case about RPG content. That's a separate meta-hobby, and it's already showing up in Lich Van Winkle's comment section.
I enjoyed reading a lot of OSR blog-posts, and reading creative stuff people have thrown out there, like Joseph Manolo's Against the Wicked City blog, or Coins and Scroll's Medieval Stalemate Simulator.
But it may or may not translate at the table.
Readers, the Palace of the Silver Princess link was kindly provided by Heroes of Thaumasia in a response to my entry of July 24, "The Original D&D Skill Rules." Honestly, I only skimmed the module, because I was short on time. I have a feeling that somebody could run it effectively, no matter the content, because most games, I suspect, thrive not because of the scenario design, but because of common interests and the rapport of the referee and the players. If I shared my own scenario notes, nobody would think they were good scenarios, or even be able to make sense of them, but when I run games with them, my players of old had fun and my new players have fun, too. I guess I'm trying to say that the written scenario may be overrated. As you say, "it may or may not translate at the table." I want to give credit to the translators.
DeleteHeroes of Thaumasia, I hope everybody will agree that arguing about gaming is not gaming. The idea that it amounts to a meta-hobby is not something that had occurred to me, and I find it really interesting.
To take your comment further, maybe part of the meta-hobby is developing game materials primarily for a sort of aesthetic appreciation rather than for actually playing through them. I think that's a legitimate thing to enjoy, but you are right that it would amount to a meta-hobby.
There is a refrain that surfaces over and over in the contention over "old-school" which is, "Who cares? Just play your games." The prevalence of this reaction supports your idea that there is a point at which the discussion is divorced from the games and becomes something else.
For me, the point of this blog is to sort out for myself what has happened to the hobby. My main sources are on the internet, though I have stopped in at game stores, where players gather at tables, to see what's going on. I really don't know about the reality behind the online commenting. My impression is that there is a "physical" OSR scene, so to speak, with conventions billed as OSR events and venues at larger game conventions specifically for "OSR." There are creators who type and draw and sell printed books. That's a material reality. But I also suspect that some commentators actually don't play, and a lot of materials are not used. Then again, there are attack blogs that seem to be written by OSR game designers.
I have read a lot of OSR blog materials, which is only a small sliver of what's out there, and I have tried some of the suggestions in play. I look forward to writing about some of them soon.
Thanks for stopping by again! The idea of OSR blogging as a non-gaming meta-hobby seems legitimate to me.
A quick examples to think about levels of meta-hobby-ing would be baseball.
DeleteThere is playing baseball.
There is watching a baseball game.
There is listening to sports-radio guys talking about last night's baseball game and/or baseball in general.
And there is arguing on the internet about last night's game and/or baseball in general.
These activities all activate pleasure centers (to different degrees for different people), but they're not the same pleasure centers in the same way.
(Playing and/or running D&D requires a lot more coordination with other people than writing D&D stuff, and/or arguing about D&D on the internet.)
It is fascinating how unstable the concept of the OSR is and thus how it was always dying. For some it seems going back to the original is/was the goal - and so we got Swords & Wizardry. But then there's Labyrinth Lord. It started as a B/X clone, but then it added a companion which allowed for the inclusion of AD&D classes, spells etc. (Actually that's how my group back in the day played - a weird mix of B/X and AD&D and what rules we liked).
ReplyDeleteThen in 2016 The Black Hack appeared on DriveThru RPG. I love the concept: universal core mechanic of 'roll under' on a d20. It's described as a clone, an OSR product and OD&D compatible, but to me that is a stretch. That is to say, there has been so much tinkering with the rules over the years that it has becomes a new game. It's not old-school anymore it's actually new-school. Which is fine. If I was to play a retro-clone I think it would be The Black Hack. But I wouldn't personally feel like I was "playing D&D the way I used to" - which is/was the point of the OSR?
As to your final question, as you and others have said, there is some great OSR material out there (e.g. Dolmenwood from Necrotic Games). But as with the internet in general or any online fandom, things often (always?) get toxic pretty quickly. I don't think it's specific to the OSR.