D&D General Why Combat is a Fail State - Blog and Thoughts

[Gus L]

I read over "Historical Look ..." and there was too much of the writer's opinion, combined with a surprising amount of hearsay, for me to take it too serious. I prefer facts and quotes from the people involved. There ARE a few cliques within the OSR battling for position, which is just how things work, especially when money is involved.

Thanks for your input

I don't love OSRsimulacrum's take on the totality of the OSR, and I'm not convinced by Lich Van Winkel's either, though both seem to be smart fellows and I consider Van Winkel a friend... I think any take on the OSR tends to focus too much on the part the author themselves is most familiar with. For OSRsimulacrum this is the "Early OSR" or "Forum OSR". For VanWinkel, who is an academic historian by trade but has never been part of the OSR scene (he's been playing of course but from what I understand his approach is closer to "trad"), I think he underestimates the difference in play style that the OSR represented from late TSR design. Both of course are right about many things - forums and the creation of OSRIC and the unacknowledged legacy to 90's design in the OSR for example. For myself I think I may give too much credit to the blossoming of design and setting that the OSR blog and G+ era represented, which I think of as the Mid and Late OSR.

The problem of course is that there are many OSRs - it's been argued rather persuasively that "OSR" has always meant different things to different groups - which is why I increasingly focus on it's outward expressions - maxims like "Combat is a Failstate". I think they're a lot like the articles of the US Constitution, in that they exist with many possible meanings to different groups - even the different groups that originally drafted them. To me the problem of "the OSR" today seems to be that there is no dominant or coherent scene generating OSR content or ideas - instead there are its various offspring, many of whom make claims to the name.

The OSR is dead ... much like punk is dead, and it will keep dying and returning either as a zombie in the service of ideology and commerce .... or if we're lucky as a reincarnate scene in a different body, with different goals and a vague memory of its old essential self. It will never really be the OSR again though.

 

[Theory of Games]

The movement is alive and well thanks largely to WotC. And as a genre of ttrpgs, OSR is thriving financially (according to DTRPG's stats).

 

[Belen]

What I find ironic is that the 5e challenge system emulates much of that. The PCs set the "level" and the encounters range from easy to deadly. Now, 5e was overly cautious with it's numbers (something the revision has addressed) but the result was pretty similar with the sole exception that the PCs, not the dungeon level, sets the average.

Not my games. Players in my games have learned that they could encounter much stronger enemies at any point.

 

[Mannahnin]

The movement is alive and well thanks largely to WotC. And as a genre of ttrpgs, OSR is thriving financially (according to DTRPG's stats).

The movement certainly owes a good deal to the OGL.

As for how the movement is doing, I think there's a meaningful difference between the hobbyist movement and the marketing category. A wide variety of stuff gets the OSR tag slapped on it, to the extent that it's not very reliable anymore as an indicator of genre. Although just the fact that folks use the label as a way to cash in is an indication that there's interest, at least.

For my part, actively following the movement for 15+ years, I think Gus has a point that the scene as a scene used to be more vital, during the days when dozens of blogs were pumping out interesting content and when bloggers and creative DMs were constantly playing in each other's games over Google+ and cross-pollinating ideas.

That being said, the newer more commercial incarnation has some big and cool success stories like Shadowdark.

 

[Belen]

There's some good data in that, but also some misconceptions. I came in about ten years earlier than that person, and definitely 2007-2008 was an inflection point, with a big explosion in the blogosphere in particular launching then and continuing for several years. Big linchpin OSR blogs like Grognardia and Delta's D&D Hotspot originate from that point.

But as I mentioned, the concept of an old school renaissance or revival was already being discussed as early as 2004 (Trent Foster "The Long Journey Home" post on Dragonsfoot, Aug 11), and was in reference to a scene that had already been developing and discussing these games for a couple of years. Other landmarks were Gary Gygax joining Dragonsfoot in 2002, and The Acaeum adding a forum section for discussion that same year. The scene picked up momentum over a few years, and then had another big infusion of energy when OSRIC and BFRPG (the first retro-clones) were released in 2006, then the blog explosion in 2007-2010, with more and more folks discussing as a frantic pace, putting out new ideas and analysis and free content. A few years later there was the Google+ phase starting in 2011, and then the expansion of self-publishing. Which was a bit of a schism between folks who thought it should be a hobbyist movement with free content, and those who were selling their stuff. And not always just because they wanted to cash in, but sometimes because actually selling stuff gives you a budget to hire artists and make your stuff cooler and better, even if it's still really a hobby activity.

A more complete historical overview you might want to check out is here:

A Historical Look at the OSR — Part I

Old-school Renaissance / OSR theory and design.

osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com

@kiznit was running OSR games at GenCon in 2005 or 2006ish.

OSR was definitely a reaction to 3.5.

 

[Belen]

Castles and Crusades launched in 2004 with a goal of bringing old school concepts to modern d20.

 

[Remathilis]

Not my games. Players in my games have learned that they could encounter much stronger enemies at any point.

Right, which makes them paranoid that everything and anything will kill them, so they take excoriatingly long times to handle even the most routine actions. Put in OSR terms; if I'm a level 2 adventuring party and I know that any given room could have a level 8 challenge, I'm going to triple check every possible scenario that could play out. Or maybe I won't care, kick in the door, and we'll all laugh and laugh as we roll up new PCs...

If that's your jam, shine on.

 

[Belen]

Right, which makes them paranoid that everything and anything will kill them, so they take excoriatingly long times to handle even the most routine actions. Put in OSR terms; if I'm a level 2 adventuring party and I know that any given room could have a level 8 challenge, I'm going to triple check every possible scenario that could play out. Or maybe I won't care, kick in the door, and we'll all laugh and laugh as we roll up new PCs...

If that's your jam, shine on.

Not at all. It makes them consider how they want to handle the situation. They often look to talk first or scout the situation to see if they can gain advantage.

What they do not do it just attack and act like combat junkies.

I rarely use dungeons in a traditional sense so there is usually no room by room encounters.

My players know that NPCs can be higher level etc so they tend to interact with people and roleplay versus roll play.

 

[Remathilis]

Not at all. It makes them consider how they want to handle the situation. They often look to talk first or scout the situation to see if they can gain advantage.

What they do not do it just attack and act like combat junkies.

I rarely use dungeons in a traditional sense so there is usually no room by room encounters.

My players know that NPCs can be higher level etc so they tend to interact with people and roleplay versus roll play.

Ok, the paranoid "triple check everything" approach.

 

[payn]

Ok, the paranoid "triple check everything" approach.

Sounds like talk the monster out of killing you approach.