What is OSR about?

Hobo said:

I'm honestly a bit confused on the whole issue of nostalgia and why the OSR (speaking generically) gets so offended by that claim. Just because I don't particularly like old rule systems very much doesn't mean that I don't appreciate a good bit of nostalgia. I've never seen that as a bad thing. But for some reason there's a strong vibe in the OSR that that's not only a terrible thing, but also dreadfully insulting to insinuate. I'd love to have someone explain that posture to me, because frankly, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

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"The only reason anyone likes 4e is because it's 'the new and shiny.' Just wait until the bloom is off the rose..."

Understand now?

rogueattorney said:

"The only reason anyone likes 4e is because it's 'the new and shiny.' Just wait until the bloom is off the rose..."

Understand now?

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"You must spread some Experience Points around . . . "

Look, nobody here has been straight with you so far. The OSR isn't about getting back to basics, older editions of D&D, or even older roleplaying games in general. No, it's really about one thing, but a lot of people don't talk about it because it's not popular. So, what is the OSR about? Eating babies. That's right. You heard it here first.

JohnRTroy said:

(And now there are forums who consider Dragonsfoot "too liberal" for their edition conservatism).

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Holy crap! Really?

I think one of the things that people are missing with regard to aspects of the OSR is that there is a real "DIY" or "indie" strain to it. It has largely been about hobbyists publishing for other hobbyists with a decent amount of skepticism towards "professional" designers and any centralization of the movement.

I think this indie strain came from about a half decade of pre-3e fans hoping that the professionals would "do it right" and then being repeatedly disappointed with the effort - from 3e to Hackmaster to Necromancer to C&C - and deciding to just do it themselves. I actually think there's a pretty big divide in the pre-3e D&D community, albeit a subtle one, between those who still yearn for "official recognition" and those who've said "F--- it, we can do it better than they would anyway."

Thus, regarding what some others had posited abot a hypothetical 4e that was closer in spirit to 1e... Really, by 2008, that ship had already sailed as far as any of the producers of OSR materials were concerned. What WotC or really any mainstream producer of D&D-ish materials was doing at that point was so far off the radar, they were going to be putting out their own materials no matter what, audience or no.

Now, what 4e has done is it's put the wind in the sails in terms of audience for the OSR products. Those fed up with 3e but disappointed in 4e had one more place to look. So, while the OSR'ers had been there for 3 or 4 years already producing tons of materials (one example: 30 adventure modules for OSRIC alone had come out prior to 4e being published), a lot of people only discovered them when they decided to see what else was out there after 4e came out.

rogueattorney said:

Now, what 4e has done is it's put the wind in the sails in terms of audience for the OSR products. Those fed up with 3e but disappointed in 4e had one more place to look. So, while the OSR'ers had been there for 3 or 4 years already producing tons of materials (one example: 30 adventure modules for OSRIC alone had come out prior to 4e being published), a lot of people only discovered them when they decided to see what else was out there after 4e came out.

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That's a nice story in theory, but is that what really happened? I haven't, for example, heard any tales of OSR publishers seeing a spike in sales after 4e came out or OSR bloggers seeing a big spike in readership or OSR websites seeing a big influx of new posters. From my perspective, the OSR pretty much kept chugging along right through the release of 4e without noticing much. If someone has some actual examples of 4e dissatisfaction contributing to the success of the OSR, I'd love to hear about them.

rogueattorney said:

I think one of the things that people are missing with regard to aspects of the OSR is that there is a real "DIY" or "indie" strain to it. It has largely been about hobbyists publishing for other hobbyists with a decent amount of skepticism towards "professional" designers and any centralization of the movement.

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I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, and I don't really understand how the OSR sees DIY as one of "their" things. The DIY gene is ingrained in gamer culture, and the designers of 3e, Hackmaster and every other rpg, got to be designers because they started saying "I can do this" and hacking away at their typewriters or word processors.

Don't get me wrong, I realise that the DIY thing is big with the OSR, and there are lots of things to be proud of, but to me, DIY is something I connect with all rpgs, be they New School or Old School. People have been saying "I can do this better than the professionals" since the dawn of our hobby, and many have shown it to be true, among others plenty of OSR efforts over the last years, but also tons of other stuff before that.

Maybe it's because I see myself as both a DIY writer and a professional designer that I don't get the distinction between the two. When I design for commercial games, I write together with others stuff that I come up with. Just like when I write for myself.

Of course, when I write for myself, the publishing venue is not a printed book, but a blog, but apart from that, it's the same thing to me.

Maybe I'm just confused. Wouldn't be the first time.

/M

Hobo said:

I'd love to have someone explain that posture to me, because frankly, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

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It's the "JUST nostalgia" put-down, as in, "There's no reason except nostalgia to play such an objectively poorly designed and clearly less fun game."

That's quite a different matter from preferring something in any case because one finds it to be of better quality, and so having nostalgia for a time when the better quality was more common.

For example, if there's too little bandwidth on a digital telephone network to match the audio quality one formerly enjoyed on an analog system -- then a preference for the older situation is not "just nostalgia".

Ourph said:

However, nostalgia is by definition a feeling you have about something from your past. It can't explain ...

a) Why people who pick up OS games they played in the past, have fun with them in the present.
b) Why some gamers never stopped playing OS games and have continuously running games or campaigns that span decades of play.
c) Why a new player who plays an OS game for the first time has fun with it.

So, while there is no doubt in my mind that nostalgia is a boon to the OSR in many ways, I think people who trot it out as the main reason for the OSR are mistaken.

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I certainly haven't read every OSR themed blog, but most of the ones I have read were more to the tune of "I played 2e, and 3e, and looked at 4e, and then realized that what I really wanted was to get back to basics." Or folks who got out of gaming entirely and then came back to 1e. Or some variation on that theme.

I have no doubt that what you're referring to has happened plenty. But I doubt that the majority of OSR folks started with old-school games now, or have played OD&D campaign continuously, or whatever.

rogueattorney said:

"The only reason anyone likes 4e is because it's 'the new and shiny.' Just wait until the bloom is off the rose..."

Understand now?

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No. Is that supposed to be insulting or something? Should I feel offended? Even if I played 4e, I mean?

If that's what I'm supposed to understand, what I"m getting from it is that OSR-themed folks who get offended by "accusations" of nostalgia are a bunch of hypersensitive crybabies. Since I'm assuming that's not what you're attempting to convey, maybe you can come up with a better example?

EDIT: Y'know what? Scratch that. That was a bit needlessly obtuse for no good reason other than I was feeling pissy. OK, yeah, that is a bit condescending. I still am surprised by the reaction to it, though.

Plus the counter example is hampered by the fact that 4e isn't really that new anymore. That must be one heckuva shine. Again; not that I play 4e or anything, because I've actually managed to avoid it almost completely. But, anyway...

I see your point, I guess. It just fails to completely convey to me the apparent depth of the insult that many people demonstrably feel when being told that they're nostalgic.

Hobo said:

I certainly haven't read every OSR themed blog, but most of the ones I have read were more to the tune of "I played 2e, and 3e, and looked at 4e, and then realized that what I really wanted was to get back to basics." Or folks who got out of gaming entirely and then came back to 1e. Or some variation on that theme.

I have no doubt that what you're referring to has happened plenty. But I doubt that the majority of OSR folks started with old-school games now, or have played OD&D campaign continuously, or whatever.

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I think I may have gotten sidetracked and done a poor job of explaining my main point, which is that the reason "nostalgia" is considered a bad word by many OS enthusiasts is that it's been used in a pejorative sense (i.e. "Your enjoyment of OS games is based on self delusion and selective memory") for so long in the edition wars. At this point, many consider any use of the word an attack. And yes, that probably makes those people over-sensitive. However, the first use of the word nostalgia in this thread looked pretty snarky to me, so maybe the sensitivity is justified in this case.