D&D General Why is "OSR style" D&D Fun For You?

[overgeeked]

Full disclosure: I legitimately do not understand why OSE is a thing. It's just B/X. Why is THAT the one that a significant portion of the OSR locked on to?

Because it’s the earliest and easiest version of the Basic game with by far the most sales. It’s the most widespread of the rules light versions of D&D. More people started with it than the other Basic editions. So, nostalgia. When the OSR came around B/X was out of print and not available as a PDF, so OSE. There’s also momentum. Like 5E, everyone’s playing it so everyone plays it.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/all-basic-b-x-and-becmi-and-rules-cyclopedia-set-sales-from-ben-riggs.690259/

 

[Arilyn]

Why OSE? Little hardcovers in boxes.

 

[cbwjm]

Why OSE? Little hardcovers in boxes.

The books are super nice.

 

[Voadam]

Because it’s the earliest and easiest version of the Basic game with by far the most sales. It’s the most widespread of the rules light versions of D&D. More people started with it than the other Basic editions. So, nostalgia. When the OSR came around B/X was out of print and not available as a PDF, so OSE. There’s also momentum. Like 5E, everyone’s playing it so everyone plays it.

A few nitpicks. B/X from 1981 is the earliest of the mostly fully compatible B/X, BECMI, RC basic line, but there was also the earlier Holmes Basic which was from the 70s pre-AD&D.

When the OSR Came around first was OSRIC (1e retroclone) then Swords & Wizards (Oe) and Labyrinth Lord (B/X). Labyrinth Lord was very popular as a vehicle for basic compatible stuff for a long while and even included an Advanced Labyrinth Lord set for incorporating AD&D things like race separate from class, AD&D classes, and AD&D monsters like demons into a basic baseline. It had momentum and a ton of 3rd party Labyrinth Lord publishers.

The original publisher of Labyrinth Lord eventually sort of stepped away and it just continued from what was out there.

When Necrotic Gnome put out OSE, essentially recreating Labyrinth Lord with B/X core rules in a clean presentation, the original B/X rule sets were available as legal PDFs but not as print on demand stuff. Labyrinth Lord's PDF though has POD options.

Old edition official D&D PDF stuff had gone back and forth with being available from WotC first starting around 2000 with their website for a number of free products, then their PDF webstore, then rpgnow and drivethru and paizo, then being yanked from availability everywhere in the 4e era and then later reinstated as available again but now exclusively on drivethru and drivethru's reskinned WotC only PDF storefront DMs Guild.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Holmes Basic was rough. It was an improvement over the OD&D booklets in terms of clarity and cohesion, but just barely.

 

[Hussar]

To restate @Reynard’s point if I might.

When did OSR become almost synonymous with OSE?

I have to admit, reading through this thread I was so confused by all the comments about simplicity because I still think of OSR as OSRIC and variations of ADnD. I think I missed a memo somewhere.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I like OSR for the same reason I've liked every other edition of D&D... I'm able to ignore most of it when we're all spending our time improvising instead.

When all parts of the "game" are considered merely just a method for generating new ideas to improvise off of... it doesn't matter how light or how heavy those methods are. We will take just enough from any of them to redirect how the story goes and then follow those paths further.

 

[Malmuria]

When did OSR become almost synonymous with OSE?

Here is the Questing Beast review of OSE back when it was still called B/X Essentials. One can get a sense of what people found/find appealing about it. It's from four years ago. The Advanced Tomes kickstarter was in 2020, during the pandemic. So I'd say it took off in 2019-2020, aided by the pandemic and people getting into dnd around that time


The other big OSR splash around that time was Mork Borg, which I think still has a very enthusiastic and creative player base.

 

[Voadam]

To restate @Reynard’s point if I might.

When did OSR become almost synonymous with OSE?

I have to admit, reading through this thread I was so confused by all the comments about simplicity because I still think of OSR as OSRIC and variations of ADnD. I think I missed a memo somewhere.

OSRIC was the first retroclone and was based on 1e AD&D but it was soon outpaced by Swords & Wizardry (Oe) and Labyrinth Lord (B/X) retroclones in number of products. It is tough to get accurate numbers however.

Drivethru currently lists 1,013 OSRIC products which from looking at the first page of results includes a ton of miscategorized Castles and Crusades and Labyrinth Lord and general OSR ones thrown in. Expeditious Retreat Press has a decently big OSRIC line. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is another 1e based OSR system which is more Conan style focused in its classes and setting but a lot of 1e for rules.

Drivethru tags 1,176 Labyrinth Lord products and 813 Old-School Essentials products. Those are for B/X. A number of OSR systems also work from a Basic baseline including Adventurer Conqueror King System, Basic Fantasy, Beyond the Wall, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and Stars Without Numbers.

Drivethru tags 1158 Swords & Wizardry products. These are for Oe. Frog God Games and Necromancer do a lot of stuff for Swords and Wizardry. Other Oe based OSR systems include Blood and Treasure and Survive This!

There are also a bunch of stuff that is general OSR stuff without specifying a specific edition model and OSR systems that are a bit too divergent in their uniqueness to really classify as being closer to any of the TSR specific editions.

 

[Voadam]

Holmes Basic was rough.

I agree. When I finally got a copy in a used book store and read it I was particularly struck by the combination of rules for quick daggers and slow two handed weapons interacting with the rule for all attacks doing d6 damage.