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Okay, but game systems aren't media, they're media platforms. I still like playing on my trusty old SNES, even if I'm not playing the exact same cartridge every time. And my DVD player still works as well as it ever did for watching movies I've never seen before. The same principle applies to...

"Force" in the sense being used here comes from stage-magic jargon. A "force" is what it's called when a magician presents a mark with the illusion of choice or random chance — "pick a card, any card!" — but they already know what the "choice" will be, because they only allow the mark to draw...

Here's my answer to what OSR gaming is, from a few-months-old Reddit thread on the topic.

I play with friends, acquaintances, and strangers. It's not at all clear to me how that's relevant to whether or not a game is fair. You're going to have to clarify what you mean by that. In the past, I've only ever heard anyone liken D&D to a competition when they're trying (whether for...

I take no issue with the label and will wear it proudly. "Enemy of DM empowerment" is certainly one way to describe what has elsewhere been called "disciplined, principled, and fruitful constraint on GM authority."

My problem with illusionism is the same as my problem with fudging, forcing, and other soft railroading techniques: even when used in good faith by a DM who only wants to run the best game possible for the players, they're still negations of player agency, located precisely where player agency...

To level the charge that the OSR pays too much attention to old-school D&D and not enough attention to other old TTRPGs is akin to wondering why a forum dedicated to classic Fords doesn't have any discussion about Chevrolets, or why those Commodore enthusiasts are always talking about their PETs...

At my table, I give fighters (see pg. 2) all of the various abilities that fighters have had in OD&D/Chainmail, AD&D, and BECMI, except spread out over levels 1st–9th. It makes for a very robust and fun-to-play class.

Following on the heels of @Mannahnin's excellent summary, I have to ask, @Reynard, are you familiar with the five-part History of the OSR? (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V) It answers a lot of common questions and should be considered required reading for anyone interested in...

I've never known a game where that's actually the case. One of the nice things about the OSR style is that feats are called magical items, and you "build" what kind of fighter you want to be by deciding what cool stuff to keep.

For me, it comes down to a few specific areas: ease, emphasis, and personal nostalgia. BECMI is easy to run. The game's built-in tools make world-building (both dungeon and wilderness design) super easy. Once you have a handle on the core mechanics (searches, turns, wandering monster checks...

The only tenable definition of "roleplaying" is "everything you do while playing a roleplaying game." RPG systems do gameplay, not genre. Seeking out a "space opera RPG" without specifying what kind of gameplay you envision is about as useful as seeking out a "space opera video game" without...

Perhaps it was Gygax's impenetrable, roundabout way of saying, "You're supposed to identify your magic items by paying sages heaps of coin after the adventure, but if you want to take a gamble on a dodgy 1st-level magic-user spell instead…"

…My point exactly. Elves in steam-powered jetpacks? Boo, that's not punk! Elves in magical plate-mail, throwing fireballs and swinging enchanted swords? Yep, totally medieval and definitely dealing with weighty matters of historical feudalism and theocracy — also very Tolkienesque, definitely...

I trust, for consistency's sake, that you bear the same hatred for """Tolkieneqsue""" fantasy, """medieval""" fantasy, and other popular but ultimately shallow genres/aesthetics? If not, singling out steampunk would be, at the very least, kind of weird.

My white whale — I'm still working on how I'd actually map this out — is a game that starts as a D&D campaign, but on every level of a huge megadungeon is a portal to a different universe. You can only open each portal by finding the right key elsewhere in the dungeon, but once you do, you have...

Gotta go with Farscape.

I'll go one step further (and leave how tongue-in-cheek I'm being up to the imagination): TSR published D&D. WotC merely publishes D&D™.

2e psionics? I loved 'em. I only have experience playing with the original (CΨHB) system and never saw the revised Dark Sun/Skills & Powers version in action, but one player in particular in my old high school group consistently played psionicists in our 2e games, and we never ran into any...

Alchemist, samurai, sage.