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This still reads to me like a misunderstanding of how OSR type games are played (or at least how I play them). 1st - The level two party can choose to go to level 8 (or a location that has level 8 type creatures), but if there's a "level 8 creature" (Say a mature red dragon) in a room on...

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...

It makes sense to me - but only in the context of play style. One of the difficulties in discussing "D&D", especially in a community like EN-World which skews towards newer editions, is the tendency to lump all the editions of D&D's together, when different editions clearly seem to encourage...

There are other concepts of balance in even the oldest systems, and many of these have made their way into OSR and Post-OSR design. The major one is "Level Based Balance". What this means here is that dungeon level (originally literally and often exactly) corresponds to PC level. So a level 1...

I'm not one to defend some of Gygax's more irksome advice or every design decision made in 1974 - 1985 ... but what you're focusing on it the worst aspects of early design ... and presumably if you're not over 60, kids playing D&D. I had those same experiences in the 1980's. 12 year olds aren't...

Seems like you've had some bad experiences with OSR play styles or dungeon crawls. You're providing a list of common complaints that people familiar with more modern games sometimes make about OSR style play or older editions. The issue is that to the degree these exist, the community that...

NSR is one fragment of the post-OSR. In as far as it's a style of design, it's not my own, but I respect what people are doing in the space, and I appreciate that the NSR community (because it's still more a community then a design style) are one of the various groups/scenes making claims to the...

The concept likely comes from the forum discourse around the release and creation of OSRIC. See this 2009 post at Grognardia discussing OSRIC's advice on combat mechanics and exploration. https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/10/primary-activity-in-adventures.html The actual phrase is harder to...

I would argue that this is most of the good modern location based/Post-OSR adventures. Especially those that focus on exploration (e.g. the Jaquays style of design) and those that offer distinctive or interesting settings. My own take on keying in this style is here...

It's popular in a variety of circles to entirely reject the "Combat is a Failstate" maxim, to deny it having any legitimacy. People do this for a variety of reasons that usually boil down to being unfamiliar and/or unhappy with the state of much Post-OSR and OSR design. To understand the Maxim...

So I have no idea what edition you are talking about. I don't think it really matters though. As a player, when you find yourself citing to rules minutia to argue against a referee's interpretation you're in the wrong, even if you are technically correct you're wrong. The referee defines the...

I do like the way that BECMI (Specifically "C" I think?) has various "prestige classes" and think it's a good way to manage things longer campaigns. The BECMI ones however strike me as fairly mechanically uninteresting. There's a lot of nice flavor there, but it's also pretty darn generic -...

I think this is the unfortunate side effect of the present epoch. One can't really stand on politeness, because even in this hobby there are people with extremely ugly views that they wish to make socially acceptable. It's unfortunate when creators we like or respect fall in with this kind of...

Greyhawk is such a strange book to me - the original LBB's read to me like a solid core for a system that has a lot of interlocking parts, and then along comes Greyhawk, and it's a bunch of ideas, some interesting and some no, that just kicks that all over to a degree. Fascinating example I...

There's always "cure disease" reversed? For me disease has always been a highly campaign specific risk - the few monster in the books sure, but an individual referee may focus on disease as a risk or not depending on the subject of the game. Despite the disease chance table in the AD&D DMG I...

Some of the best writing in the OSR/Post OSR, while also being very classic style dungeons rooted in pre-Tolkien fantasy. Considering the quality Ben L. is someone who should be better known. Also he finds and hires great (often new) artists (mostly - I don't include my contributions there).

You've pointed out one of the big Halfling advantages - the ability to get AC 0vs. bigger humanoids without any bonuses at Level 1 - though I'm not sure being harder to hit in plate armor then a fighter but better at shooting arrows makes a lot of sense here. The AC bonus in general doesn't sit...

People do work hard on them, and yes they deserve respect for that - it's like reviewing, a thankless task, especially in RPGS. I am not scorning the judges others who work on the ENNIES at all. If that's your impression of my comment I apologize to you. Rather, I don't give the awards much...

See how little I know or care about those things? I don't know who won the MTV Choice awards either. Are those still a thing?

You are being far more understanding with these posters then I could bother to be and I salute you for it (as well as your careful documentation of the text in discussion). I've been re-reading this tonight instead of posting...