What is OSR about?

[Raven Crowking]

Dogmatism is hardly limited to proponents of games lacking that shiny new blush.

Likewise lack of dogmatism.

You are using a brush that paints not only the object, but the painter as well.


RC

 

[TerraDave]

This is what the OSR is about

"a yearning for the past in idealized form."

An almost perfect description of what I have seen in the OSR blagosphere.

Well, this and recreating it. Before AD&D, Dragonlance, UA, 2E, or whatever sent things on the wrong path.

 

[TerraDave]

Anyone else think that there's a "Lost School" covering the late 1E/most of 2E/later BECMI material, with Elmore/Caldwell/Easley art (and others like Stephen Fabian, who's criminally underappreciated), more setting- and story-focused gaming, and a less nasty, brutish, swords & sorcery feel, that sort of gets lost amid the OSR, the 3E/Pathfinder, and the 4E groups? Or is it just me?

I don't think you are alone at all. i would guess a LOT of us got our start in the mid to late 80s, when BECMI and 2E *were* D&D. It so happens that I "discovered" AD&D 1E later and happened to prefer that style of play, but I am solidly a product of 80s TSR games.

You mean, "middle school".

I think there is something to that.

 

[Ourph]

I think it's the "idealized" that people get stuck on. If I say I'm having fun playing 4e, nobody ever tells me that I'm "idealizing" my play experience. But if I'm having fun playing AD&D (i.e. actually playing, right now, at the present time, as in the guys came over last night for a game) people talk about nostalgia as if it has to be a major driving force. "Idealizing" a game that happened 20 years ago makes sense. Not so much the game I was having fun with last night*.

*To be truthful, it has actually been 34 nights since I last played AD&D. Still not long enough for nostalgia to set in IMO, but I wanted to be perfectly honest.

 

[The Shaman]

I think it's the "idealized" that people get stuck on. If I say I'm having fun playing 4e, nobody ever tells me that I'm "idealizing" my play experience. But if I'm having fun playing AD&D (i.e. actually playing, right now, at the present time, as in the guys came over last night for a game) people talk about nostalgia as if it has to be a major driving force. "Idealizing" a game that happened 20 years ago makes sense. Not so much the game I was having fun with last night*.

*To be truthful, it has actually been 34 nights since I last played AD&D. Still not long enough for nostalgia to set in IMO, but I wanted to be perfectly honest.

The Mingol speaks the truth.

 

[Reynard]

2. James Raggi's Random Esoteric Creature Generator, which argues for dropping pretty much all traditional D&D monsters and replacing them with unique critters nobody has ever seen before:
Goodman Games

I bought this on a whim. It is awesome.

EDIT: i don't actually agree with the author on dumping humanoids for humans, though. "Fodder races" are useful in both advneture and milieu design. But dropping the medusa or otyugh for a random monstrosity, I'm all for.

 

[Desdichado]

Dogmatism is hardly limited to proponents of games lacking that shiny new blush.

Likewise lack of dogmatism.

You are using a brush that paints not only the object, but the painter as well.

No, I'm really not. Plus, I know that there are plenty of 4e crusaders who are just as dogmatic. I'm not sure why you continue to insist on bringing that up, though. It's not really the subject of the conversation. I'd be more than happy to talk about 4e dogmatism... in another thread that's about that.

Or Pathfinder dogmatism. Or Cthulhu dogmatism (I actually have a genuine beef with these people, but that's neither here nor there.) Or any other dogmatic schism.

It just so happens that that's not the topic here today, though.

 

[Ourph]

It just so happens that that's not the topic here today, though.

OS dogmatism isn't really the topic either, but you keep bringing it up. Just as Pathfinder dogmatism doesn't define Pathfinder fandom, OS dogmatism doesn't define the OSR.

 

[Desdichado]

I think it's the "idealized" that people get stuck on. If I say I'm having fun playing 4e, nobody ever tells me that I'm "idealizing" my play experience. But if I'm having fun playing AD&D (i.e. actually playing, right now, at the present time, as in the guys came over last night for a game) people talk about nostalgia as if it has to be a major driving force. "Idealizing" a game that happened 20 years ago makes sense. Not so much the game I was having fun with last night*.

*To be truthful, it has actually been 34 nights since I last played AD&D. Still not long enough for nostalgia to set in IMO, but I wanted to be perfectly honest.

Let me make sure I'm understanding what you're talking about here. Is it your claim that you can only idealize something abstract, something that you can't actually revisit?

That it'd be possible for me to idealize Mars but not Hawaii, because, heck, I just went to Hawaii a few months ago? That I could idealize the golden age of piracy, because I could never gather a crew on a sailing ship and attack Spanish shipping lanes in the Carribean, but that I couldn't idealize the 80s because it would be possible for me to grow a mullet, wear Oakleys, drive a Chevy I-ROC and listen to nothing by Ratt, Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot casette tapes?

Because if I did all of the above, I would be really hard-pressed to say that I didn't idealize the 80s.

Yet, if I'm understanding you correctly, that's exactly what you're trying to claim.

OS dogmatism isn't really the topic either, but you keep bringing it up. Just as Pathfinder dogmatism doesn't define Pathfinder fandom, OS dogmatism doesn't define the OSR.

I never claimed that it defined it, I merely claimed that there's a very noticeable element to it. Unfortunately, it's a loud and noticeable enough element that from the outside looking in, it's sometimes the only thing that easy to see.

I don't for a minute believe that that's what the OSR is, but it certainly and absolutely is on topic for the question the thread asks. In fact, I'm quite baffled that you would attempt to claim that it isn't.

 

[Ourph]

Let me make sure I'm understanding what you're talking about here. Is it your claim that you can only idealize something abstract, something that you can't actually revisit?

That's not exactly it.

That it'd be possible for me to idealize Mars but not Hawaii, because, heck, I just went to Hawaii a few months ago?

Again, not quite. I think a more apt analogy is that, you MIGHT BE idealizing Hawaii if you went there once a few years ago and remember enjoying it (note, MIGHT BE). However, It's very unlikely that you're idealizing it if you've gone there on vacation twice a year for the last 5 years and enjoyed the heck out of yourself every single time.

I never claimed that it defined it, I merely claimed that there's a very noticeable element to it. Unfortunately, it's a loud and noticeable enough element that from the outside looking in, it's sometimes the only thing that easy to see.

I suppose, that's an unfortunate truth. Hopefully this thread has thrown some light onto the fact that there's a lot more to the OSR than the occasional badwrongfun blog rant or messageboard edition war.