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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So why isn't Rolemaster OSR and just "Old School" (which was what I originally responded to with the question).

An actual old school product is just old school. A new product is required to make it OSR.

So, MERP is just old school. Against the Darkmaster, which is derived from it, is OSR.

 

[overgeeked]

So why isn't Rolemaster OSR and just "Old School" (which was what I originally responded to with the question).

Old school is the original games. Rolemaster, AD&D, Classic Traveller, WEG Star Wars, etc.

Old-School Revival is the remixed versions of those games. OSRIC, For Gold and Glory, Cepheus Engine, etc.

 

[jdrakeh]

I thought Cepheus was derived from Mongoose Traveller

Kind of. It's a Classic Traveller clone (or hack depending upon which of the many Cepheus variants you're looking at) via the Mongoose Traveller OGL. Kind of like OSRIC is a AD&D clone via the D&D 3e/3.5 OGL.

 

[Reynard]

An actual old school product is just old school. A new product is required to make it OSR.

So, MERP is just old school. Against the Darkmaster, which is derived from it, is OSR.

Old school is the original games. Rolemaster, AD&D, Classic Traveller, WEG Star Wars, etc.

Old-School Revival is the remixed versions of those games. OSRIC, For Gold and Glory, Cepheus Engine, etc.

See, this is weird to me, because I don't think OSRIC or OSE qualify by that definition. Yes, they are "new products" but all they are doing is editing a layout. There is intentionally no design. I get how other games (like the recent really cool Shadowdark) get labelled "OSR" in that context because they are doing something interesting while harkening back to a largely mythical playstyle.

So, if I wrote a module for MERP, would that be "OSR"?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Kind of. It's a Classic Traveller clone (or hack depending upon which of the many Cepheus variants you're looking at) via the Mongoose Traveller OGL. Kind of like OSRIC is a AD&D clone via the D&D 3e/3.5 OGL.

Ah, I got the relationship backwards. Definitely OSR, then!

 

[overgeeked]

See, this is weird to me, because I don't think OSRIC or OSE qualify by that definition. Yes, they are "new products" but all they are doing is editing a layout. There is intentionally no design.

There are changes and there is design that goes into them. Nowhere near as much as an original game, obviously, but there is design.

I get how other games (like the recent really cool Shadowdark) get labelled "OSR" in that context because they are doing something interesting while harkening back to a largely mythical playstyle.

It's fluid.

So, if I wrote a module for MERP, would that be "OSR"?

No idea.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

See, this is weird to me, because I don't think OSRIC or OSE qualify by that definition. Yes, they are "new products" but all they are doing is editing a layout. There is intentionally no design. I get how other games (like the recent really cool Shadowdark) get labelled "OSR" in that context because they are doing something interesting while harkening back to a largely mythical playstyle.

So, if I wrote a module for MERP, would that be "OSR"?

OSE has more design than people want to admit. It's mostly of the sort where there are two slightly different versions of one rule -- something that went unnoticed when they were scattered around by TSR's terrible organizational style -- and Gavin Norman had to reconcile the two of them. There's not a lot of that happening, but it did happen.

And once he added AD&D content to the B/X framework, it's definitely design work, since again, the two systems were compatible but not identical, and he had to make choices.

 

[Voadam]

The "R" -- which can stand for multiple things, since it's a grassroots movement -- usually indicates something has been remixed in some fashion. (Ironically "remix" isn't one of the things the "R" can stand for.)

I've seen old school revival and old school renaissance and old school roleplaying game.

I wouldn't say remix is the aspect as much as just being in the spirit of at least one aspect of old school games.

 

[Reynard]

Interesting. I wonder where the line between new OSR game and Old School Fantasy Heartbreaker is.

 

[jdrakeh]

I've seen old school revival and old school renaissance and old school roleplaying game.

I wouldn't say remix is the aspect as much as just being in the spirit of at least one aspect of old school games.

Early on, I almost exclusively saw "Old School Revival" and, later, "Old School Renaissance". Now I see all three of those terms. I'm not sure that there's a 100% accepted definition for any of them today.