OSR My definitions for OSR

[VengerSatanis]

(O)D&D and Basic (of which there are several kinds, actually) really shouldn't be conflated. I agree with trancejeremy that "OSR = TSR era D&D/AD&D" but would extend that to other TSR RPGs like Empire of the Petal Throne, Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, and even Boot Hill, Gangbusters, and Top Secret, and maybe even Marvel Superheroes. I might even be inclined to include some of the non-TSR RPGs like Tunnels & Trolls, Villains and Vigilantes, Traveller, Chivalry & Sorcery, and RuneQuest, and perhaps even Bunnies & Burrows. (Yeah, I went there.) There are others but those are good examples. As such, the OSR isn't simply about compatibility with early D&D nor even about products published to emulate early D&D, but about a whole movement to play and enjoy early RPGs, and in some smaller sense includes some newer games and supplements that emulate early RPGs of many stripes.

What you said there is similar to the end of point #3.

As for the rest... OK, thanks for the comment.

VS

 

[Mark CMG]

What you said there is similar to the end of point #3.

How do you mean?

 

[VengerSatanis]

That which is considered classic, vintage, retro, and old school is sometimes called OSR even though it bears little resemblance to D&D. The Call of Cthulhu RPG, for example.

That's a quote from the end of point #3. I could have just as easily kept naming early RPGs like Metamorphosis Alpha, RuneQuest, Tunnels & Trolls, etc.

VS

 

[prosfilaes]

roll play vs. roleplay.

I still remember my one and only game of Dungeon Crawl Classics, where the DM made a roll and had a grubworm kill my most interesting character, no roll versus AC, no check. Don't worry, I could play my other three characters that could die by one roll of the DM. Likewise, it's not like we were going to talk to anything in this dungeon. Yes, that was serious hardcore roleplay there.

(Sorry; still a little bitter over that whole session.)

wild-eyed anything goes creativity

If you mean ripping off L. Sprague de Camp (Carnelian Cube) and A. E. van Vogt (coeulr / displacer beast) and getting away with it because people weren't familiar with the sources, sure. Torg, Shadowrun, Rifts, Tales of Gargentihr, Transhuman Space, GURPS IOU, etc. all seem to have pretty wild-eyed creativity after that OSR period. A lot of the creativity differences seem to be who they were cribbing from.

player-character determined campaigns

Again, you seem to have taken some positive idea and associated it with OSR. Are we talking about the railroads that popped up around the Dragonlance series?

 

[Mark CMG]

That's a quote from the end of point #3. I could have just as easily kept naming early RPGs like Metamorphosis Alpha, RuneQuest, Tunnels & Trolls, etc.

I see. Thanks for the clarification. Certainly, the Dead Games Society would agree with that.

 

[Mark CMG]

I still remember my one and only game of Dungeon Crawl Classics, where the DM made a roll and had a grubworm kill my most interesting character, no roll versus AC, no check. Don't worry, I could play my other three characters that could die by one roll of the DM. Likewise, it's not like we were going to talk to anything in this dungeon. Yes, that was serious hardcore roleplay there.

It's not unusual. I've seen it happen in gameplay at conventions. When DCC was being playtested, I got in a couple of games at Gary Con with Joseph Goodman at the helm. A lot of the trimmings were certainly D&D-esque but gameplay was more like playing at a table with Jim Ward running MA/Gamma World, or to use a more modern reference playing Paranoia. The game seemed less about building a character that had a likely chance of survival and more about enjoying the demise the DM described when the dice inevitably struck your PC down. I've only played a handful of DCC games but several were with Joseph Goodman GMing, so I assume this is not a case of getting a bad GM, nor one who doesn't know what he is doing.

Again, you seem to have taken some positive idea and associated it with OSR. Are we talking about the railroads that popped up around the Dragonlance series?

You've lost me here. How are "player-character determined campaigns" considered railroads?

I do agree that the DL series was decidedly a railroad. It became obvious to our group the summer after the DL adventures became available and we decided to play them. Someone else in the group would DM, so the rest of us made sure not to check them out at all. We had one more player than the modules included so, having the most experience, I made one up for myself while everyone else had the named PCs. I asked the DM about making a Half-Orc Fighter and he said he thought it would be fine. The next couple of months were a series of game sessions (two to four per week in those days!) where the DM ran the adventures by the book. If it hadn't been obvious enough to us from running the pregens how forced it all was then the "fifth wheel" Half-Orc Fighter who essentially got to do nothing but swing his bastard sword when combat erupted made things abundantly clear. Somewhere in the third module we voted to switch the campaign to something else.

 

[Umbran]

You may dislike it, but that's the reality many OSR gamers/fans/adherents have. OSR is a broad spectrum, a very big tent.

But #3 is fundamentally incompatible with #1, as other games of the period (which is very broad, by the way, spanning decades) are not compatible with any form of D&D.

As for Fate, I'm sure a talented GM or group can try to emulate one system with another. However, for most OSRers, Fate is the antithesis of the old school renaissance.

Which is funny, because FATE is rather in line with #2.

I can't tell if you're going for "OSR = 1 AND 2 AND 3" (which I've shown is not self-consistent) of "OSR = 1 OR 2 OR 3", which I've shown doesn't really hold, as folks will kick out things that meet one of those criteria for other reasons.

I see that you address some of this later, but I maintain that if it is that confusing, it isn't really one thing. So, I think you cannot win with definition of it as one thing.

Now, split "OSR" into it's own factions, and note that those factions have tended to come together for some reason, and you might have something.

 

[prosfilaes]

You've lost me here. How are "player-character determined campaigns" considered railroads?

They aren't; sorry, I see my original post wasn't very clear. It's the reverse; I don't see how OSR is particularly player-character determined unless you're comparing them to the straight-out railroads that followed them.

 

[Mark CMG]

They aren't. The reverse; I don't see how OSR is particularly player-character determined unless you're comparing them to the straight-out railroads that followed them.

I see what you are saying. I won't defend his point, and don't particularly agree with it. That speaks to playstyle and I've seen all sorts on the railroad to sandbox scale in practice since I started in 1974 and onward through today's so-called OSR movement. Personally, I find (and always have) setting-based adventures where PCs can go where they want, dawdle here and there, strike out off the map, and all the rest as my favorite style of play, which obviously leans toward the sandbox end of that spectrum.

 

[VengerSatanis]

I explain in the full blog post that each of those three points can either individually or together be considered OSR.

http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/10/osr-defined.html


That sounds like a bad DCC RPG experience. Sorry for your loss. No save, check, or anything? That's a GM error, not indicative of particular play style, era, or movement.

Yes, a lot of later RPGs were creative. Just stating that OSR is about taking the rules as written and then twisting, turning them by individual GMs until they're almost unrecognizable from the original text.

VS