OSR Is there room in modern gaming for the OSR to bring in new gamers?

[Minigiant]

One thing about OSR is that is it encouraged looking at the problem ahead of you and not at your character sheet. This pushes humancentric characters with fewer supernatural features in realistic lower fantastic campaigns.

The modern times has popular comics and anime and high fantastical video games and tv shows. Games that don't have superstrength, fire blasts, razor sharp claws, and flight as regular abilities would have to sell their fun to the masses. And many OSR books look like bland textbooks.

Then you get to the heavy Eurocentric focus on many of the concepts in many OSR games.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Man. It’s gross. Playing for decades and if someone wanted to play nice together they would be welcomed.

this is the zeitgeist now, us against them.

now if you want to play a conqueror—a barbarian warlord or whatever you are some sort of colonialist racist.

at an actual gaming table with people who want to game it’s just a game—a fantasy.

unless the new players are bent on conflict heck yeah they could get sucked into simpler rules with more freedom. What? Are they a monolithic group that can’t handle character death like some old neckbeard can’t handle diversity? See what I did there?

fun games draw people in. A novice watching a good rpg will be inspired. Full stop.

The only compact for engaging in a game is the equal opportunity under even-handed circumstances to have fun. RPGs include more data and facts than board games do; but once one makes their manipulation of such facts and data paramount and necessary for all participants who just want to derive "no loss "fun" from the experience, then you are no longer in the realm of game or gaming.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm not saying OSR isn't imaginative. I am saying OSR mostly comes from the same sources and emphasizes the same tropes. This because when Old School was new, that's all there was. So the game didn't explain things everyone already assumed.

So now new players are coming from other sources, a OSR DM actually has to explain the fun of OSR.

I think there's some validity to this. Some facets of the old school style of play do require some introduction to understand why they're there.

That being said, mechanically they're simpler than current D&D. There is much less explanation and time needed to generate a character, for example, and to start playing. With the OSR DMs I regularly play with online, it's a common occurrence for them to introduce a brand new player to B/X / OSE in five minutes if they have any previous D&D experience, or fifteen if they have none.

Players get the core concept of playing a role in a fantasy adventure whether it's 5E or OSR. OSR typically allows them to engage immediately without having to read or understand a bunch of rules. The DM can take that load off their shoulders.

For example, in OSR Halfling are weak little humans who are mostly worse in 95% of the ways than a human. OSR found the charm in that and need no elaboration to make them interesting.

This is simply incorrect. In the most popular OSR games (largely B/X derivatives) it's a common point of humor how Halflings are badasses, and/or the "secret Ranger class". In B/X they've only got 1 fewer HP per level lower than Dwarves and Fighters on average, they have the best Saving Throws in the game, they can wear any armor, they get a bonus to AC against anything larger than man-size, a bonus with missile weapons, 90% stealth in woods or undergrowth, and 33% in dungeons. They are capped at 8th level, but most games don't go that high anyway (and the humans don't even get close to the Saves of a 7th level halfling until 13th level, and stop getting full HD after 9th). And o course DMs always have options to bend that for long-running campaigns.

In original old school rules Halflings were quite good. And in modern OSR games, designers are every bit as conscious about making the various choices fun to play as any other modern designer.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I generally agree that games tend to become more accessible with revision. I just disagree that accessibility always makes for a better game. See how restrictions on spellcasting over time being lifted is harmful to both balance as well as gameplay decision making. I think it is good that we have a more accessible modern version of the game, but just as Darksouls can be an iconoclast in video games there's room for the classic game especially when it comes in such a great text (Old School Essentials).

I also think the expectation of consistency between game mechanics with different purposes mostly comes from exposure to other RPGs. Uniform resolution is not really an expectation most board gamers have for insistence.

I'd agree that accessibility isn't equal to "a better game" however the topic is about bringing in new gamers to the hobby. Accessibility is a huge factor in preventing people from even trying the game. I have first hand experience just this month with an avid boardgamer who was afraid to come try 5e because they were picturing an entire book full of rules they didn't know and we're intimidated.

When I described the rules as "The GM will tell you how to do your action. You are going to roll a d20 and add the number on your sheet from that section" they realized the game is easier to engage in than Gloomhaven can be.

People say B/X is easier to teach, but I find the simplicity of d20+mod>=DC so much easier to explain than the various subsystems in the rules-old-school.

 

[Mannahnin]

When I described the rules as "The GM will tell you how to do your action. You are going to roll a d20 and add the number on your sheet from that section" they realized the game is easier to engage in than Gloomhaven can be.

People say B/X is easier to teach, but I find the simplicity of d20+mod>=DC so much easier to explain than the various subsystems in the rules-old-school.

There's a lot of truth to that. The core "D20, roll high" concept is extremely simple. It's when you get into explaining character abilities, actions and spells and such that it gets complicated.

Though TBF, you mostly don't need to explain any of the B/X sub-systems to a new player. "Roll a d6, you're hoping for low. Ok, here's what happens." Attacks and Saves are still basically just "D20, roll high".

 

[Neonchameleon]

There's a lot of truth to that. The core "D20, roll high" concept is extremely simple. It's when you get into explaining character abilities, actions and spells and such that it gets complicated.

Even then 5e isn't that complex, depending on your class. It's IME analysis paralysis over spells that causes problems.

Though TBF, you mostly don't need to explain any of the B/X sub-systems to a new player. "Roll a d6, you're hoping for low. Ok, here's what happens." Attacks and Saves are still basically just "D20, roll high".

YMMV. As a player I want to learn the subsystems and the sooner I do the sooner I stop feeling I'm a drag on the rest of the group. If there's neither rhyme nor reason for a subsystem to be whichever way round it is it's harder to learn and I don't want to be the person slowing the game down because I'm flailing around wondering which dice to pick up and don't even know what a good roll is. 3.X is, at least for me, easier to learn to basic proficiency than B/X even if it's far far harder to master mechanically.

 

[Umbran]

To a certain extent, and a bit of an aside to your discussion on outcasts:

Spoiler

The "outcasts" that stayed at the table were the ones that weren't "shot down" by our own community.

Not really aside - I think you're hitting the nail on the head.

For those who don't recognize that picture and understand what it means...

Spoiler: a story of data analysis

Back in WWII, the Center for Naval Analysis was tasked with figuring out how to keep so many bombers from getting shot down. So, the looked at the damage on bombers, and basically said, "Okay, that's where they are getting shot, we should armor those areas."

This was, of course, exactly wrong.

Their analysis was on bombers who returned to base. Those are the areas that a bomber could get shot and survive to make it home. Statistician Abraham Wald realized that armoring those areas would be superfluous, and warned planners instead to armor areas the surviving planes weren't shot, and lo and behold, Wald was correct, and planes survived combat better.

This is an example of what we now call "survivor bias" - a selection bias that happens when you only look at items that pass though a selection process, rather than things that are rejected by that process.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'd agree that accessibility isn't equal to "a better game" however the topic is about bringing in new gamers to the hobby. Accessibility is a huge factor in preventing people from even trying the game. I have first hand experience just this month with an avid boardgamer who was afraid to come try 5e because they were picturing an entire book full of rules they didn't know and we're intimidated.

When I described the rules as "The GM will tell you how to do your action. You are going to roll a d20 and add the number on your sheet from that section" they realized the game is easier to engage in than Gloomhaven can be.

People say B/X is easier to teach, but I find the simplicity of d20+mod>=DC so much easier to explain than the various subsystems in the rules-old-school.

So there is a simple, easy-to-understand difference between B/X (for example) and 5e.

When you focus solely on the d20+mod .... you are forgetting that the number of player-facing options in 5e can be staggering. Even with just the basic rules pdf, there are a lot of options and fiddly bits that the player has to deal with.

On the other hand, creating a character, even for the first time, and playing in B/X (assuming you have a DM that knows the rules) is incredibly simple in B/X.

I don't want to overstate this too much- you can always use pregen characters, you can use standard arrays for ability scores, you can try and narrow the player-facing options down, but while 5e isn't ... you know, 3e or anything, it relies on expanding the player-facing options.

I have seen this when newer players engage in the game; they get frustrated not because of d20+option, but because of the character creation process, or knowing when to use their character abilities, or figuring out their cantrips/spells, or other things that seem simple once you are used to the paradigm.

TLDR; B/X can make most of the issues DM-facing early on, allowing players to concentrate on playing. In 5e, as simple as it is compared to some other games, most of those issues and choices remain player-facing.

 

[Umbran]

So there is a simple, easy-to-understand difference between B/X (for example) and 5e.

When you focus solely on the d20+mod .... you are forgetting that the number of player-facing options in 5e can be staggering. Even with just the basic rules pdf, there are a lot of options and fiddly bits that the player has to deal with.

On the other hand, creating a character, even for the first time, and playing in B/X (assuming you have a DM that knows the rules) is incredibly simple in B/X.

So, that may not mean what we think it means.

It means that the explicit rules necessary for play are less, but we've now hidden much of the content inside the skull of the GM. I can engage more quickly, but I know less about what's going on. The new player has a harder time making informed decisions. In 5e, I can look up how far my character can jump if I don't know it off the top of my head. In an OSR game, it may be, "Well, you can try..."

Which brings us around to maybe asking a different question - maybe it is less about whether OSR games are a good entry point, and more about whether OSR Game Masters are a good entry point. And, does the published game prepare GMs to be a good entry point out of the box, without apprenticeship?

 

[Minigiant]

This is simply incorrect. In the most popular OSR games (largely B/X derivatives) it's a common point of humor how Halflings are badasses, and/or the "secret Ranger class". In B/X they've only got 1 fewer HP per level lower than Dwarves and Fighters on average, they have the best Saving Throws in the game, they can wear any armor, they get a bonus to AC against anything larger than man-size, a bonus with missile weapons, 90% stealth in woods or undergrowth, and 33% in dungeons. They are capped at 8th level, but most games don't go that high anyway (and the humans don't even get close to the Saves of a 7th level halfling until 13th level, and stop getting full HD after 9th). And o course DMs always have options to bend that for long-running campaigns.

This is my point.

It's a common sense of humor for people who played in the 70s and 80s. However people who came in the 90s and later don't see it. And some OSR-Likes lacked those elements and made Halflings bad warriors who can sneak.

Hence me saying it has to be sold. Even some people from the old school missed these elements because these were untold elements born of the limited literary sources of the time.