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

[Emerikol]

OSR style gaming is one flavor of gaming. It's like saying "can I get more customers if I sell chocolate ice cream". The answer is almost surely yes. The OSR being out there will add players to the hobby.

The bigger question for WotC is what they should do to maximize new players. Then it is not so clear. Endless debates can erupt about what the sweet spot is for gaming. I likely think properly presented that OSR gaming would be more popular than many on here might think but I'm still pretty sure it wouldn't be the absolute most popular style.

So are you helping the hobby in general by running good OSR style games? Yes absolutely. Good games always help the hobby regardless of the style. If you can help people discover their own tastes and you present it in a good manner you are doing good.

 

[Emerikol]

And Jack, I too prefer your style of play when it comes to hard earned victories. But I agree with the others that it is not to everyone's taste. I know people who really do just want to "shine" and show off their cool powers and look good doing it. If they are having fun it's hard to argue they are doing it wrong. In fact that holds for any playstyle. Fun is the objective wth a game right?

 

[Fanaelialae]

If someone is offended that @Jack Daniel enjoys a particular type of hard-earned victory, they can speak for themselves. This is the sort of thing I was getting at. One rarely sees this sort of policing done to trad and OC/neo-trad play. Yes, there are arguments, but those involve actual people advocating for what they do.

I don't think anyone was offended that @Jack Daniel enjoys a particular type of hard-earned victory.

I thought it was actually a really cool and compelling play report. But the concluding statements kind of ruined it for me. Jack could have said "I don't think they'd want it any other way" and left it at that. Instead, Jack went on to talk about hollow victories that are handed to people who play other ways.

It's the verbal equivalent of tripping your opponent. I think that the playstyle Jack describes stands on its own merits, but I don't get that impression from Jack's statement. My impression from that is the only way an OSR playstyle can stand is by tearing down alternative playstyles, which is of course absurd.

 

[Mecheon]

A lot of description of OSR fun is often dismissal of other styles and/or a bunch of "You had to be there". That's hard to sell.

Pretty much

You want OSR to sell? Then you're going to want a big streamer doing a regular OSR game on Twitch or the like and advertising it.

Matt Mercer's done more for D&D getting out there than WotC's done in decades

 

[Imaro]

Pretty much

You want OSR to sell? Then you're going to want a big streamer doing a regular OSR game on Twitch or the like and advertising it.

Matt Mercer's done more for D&D getting out there than WotC's done in decades

I would say this + a high production value OSR game to showcase. It isn't though about often but WotC makes some good looking, eye-catching books and if you are trying to become an alternative to D&D for new gamers you want to be on that level.

 

[Democratus]

The best way to bring new players into OSR, in my experience, is to invite them.

Tabletop RPGs thrive on the fellowship of gathering with people around a table and creating fun memories. Doesn't matter if it's D&D, Ysgarth, Paranoia, Nephilim, Eclipse Phase, or some game your friend made from whole cloth. Get together, have an experience steeped in whatever genre the game has to offer, and enjoy each others' company.

I'm trying to do my part by creating a large OSE campaign in Austin. A 2nd DM has volunteered to join the fun and we hope to double the player base within a year. Where this will go...I have no idea. But our goal is to bring in new players and show them a good time. So far we've been doing pretty well with it. Fully half of the players are new and most have enjoyed it enough to go buy the rulebooks and come back for more sessions.

You prefer 5e as a game? Great. Go out there and get more gamers into the hobby. You like OSR? Cool! Invite your friends, put notices up on the wall of your FLGS, and get people into the game. EVERY stripe of RPG is better when more people are playing ANY stripe of RPG. A larger game community means more new ideas, more fresh takes on how to play, and a stronger community.

 

[Retreater]

Hard-won victories are fine. Getting completely trounced is not fun - especially if you are so out-classed that you can't even defend well enough to escape. Having every corridor in a dungeon lead to an encounter you cannot win is not fun. Playing in an adventure where you lose more XP through character death than you've gained in 6 months of weekly play is not fun.
This has been my experience in the OSR, and how it is intended to play RAW.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Hard-won victories are fine. Getting completely trounced is not fun - especially if you are so out-classed that you can't even defend well enough to escape. Having every corridor in a dungeon lead to an encounter you cannot win is not fun. Playing in an adventure where you lose more XP through character death than you've gained in 6 months of weekly play is not fun.
This has been my experience in the OSR, and how it is intended to play RAW.

RAI is as important, if not moreso, than RAW. And just because that was your experience, doesn't mean it was for others.

I started with the black box, without having anyone to teach me. At the age of 9 I was about the furthest thing from a killer DM. The thought of losing a precious character was heartbreaking to me, and I projected that onto my players. So, while we played by the rules, no one ever died in my games. Some of that was certainly luck, but it was also how I set up encounters and traps to give the players an edge.

There's absolutely no reason you have to play an OSR game as high lethality. The TSR ninjas didn't show up at my house when I failed to hit my killer DM quota. Despite that, I was in my early 20s before I finally killed a character. It felt REALLY bad, but the more characters I killed - and realized that my players weren't overcome with soul crushing grief - the more I got used to it. Nowadays, as long as the player isn't upset, I'll tease and taunt them if character death seems imminent.

 

[Mannahnin]

The tradition seems to be that they're either a coward who avoids all combat, or they are dead.

I've somehow managed to mostly avoid both fates for nearly all of my characters over the past year, though there's been some luck involved.

 

[Sithlord]

When I think old school games. I think encounters that can be solved without a die roll for some reason. And I like to play that way. Not every encounter mind you. But little puzzles or things where the player had to notice something or use things found earlier to solve a problem. I am notorious for riddles (sometimes ridiculously easy sometimes hard). I just learned to never let them bottleneck an adventure. I even tell players up front they can bypass it and come back to it later most of the time. Sometimes a fight is imminent if u can’t solve it. I don’t do that every freaking adventure. I do many social encounters where a die roll is not needed. They just need to have learned what the npc wants to negotiate. And how bad the npc wants it. Sometime just doing a die roll even on a success produces less results because they don’t know what the npc really wants or likes.