Not really. OSR was originally based on a desire to play and provide continued support for TSR D&D. That is its origins. That is what it was initially based on.
The principles and historical revisionism came later, in part when online groups began applying "system matters" to TSR D&D to critically evaluate the sort of experiences that these older games, particularly B/X, cultivated per RAW.* However, I think that focusing on this revisionism is missing the forest for the trees that most people are playing these games because they find them fun. I personally don't give a rats behind about the myth of how old school D&D was played nor do I particularly care how you played your games in the olden days. I care about whether games are fun or not - and whether they deliver the experience they claim they do - and those are the games that I play.
* There was even a great post on Google+ where Luke Crane (i.e., Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Mouse Guard) talked about his experiences of running B/X per the rules. He admired the game quite a bit as a game.
How so? An emergent story does not preclude roleplaying your character. Not being guided through a GM's pre-authored adventure does not preclude roleplaying your character. Dungeon-crawling and exploration does not preclude roleplaying your character.
I think that this view seems to presuppose a narrow, if not yucky gatekeeping OneTrueWay, sense of roleplaying. Pardon my French, but screw that crap.
Furthermore, can you not see how adventure paths, metaplots, and the Hickman Revolution could also be construed as antithetical to the fundamental notion of roleplaying? If my character's goals and backstory don't matter or move the needle much because of the pre-authored GM adventure, then isn't the player just along for the ride? That is certainly the feeling that I get when playing a number of APs.
As I said before, if I know that the GM has an adventure path or story campaign planned, then I'm generally not going to bother creating an elaborate backstory or goals for my character. I will probably save roleplaying that character concept for later, because it's probably not going to matter to the GM or the AP. I will probably just create a character with cool options that I may want to see do cool things, less of a CRPG character and more of an ARPG/MMORPG character.
The fact that you are asking about the existence of games that innovate on OS rather than just recreating 1977 is pretty telling for me, let alone others who are more familiar with the OSR movement.
I don't know what game would satisfy all of your criteria. Again, there is possibly Bugbears & Borderlands, though I don't recall what
@Sacrosanct wrote in there about balancing encounters. Possibly Castles & Crusaders, but again, I don't know much about its attitude towards balancing encounters.
There are a number of games younger than D&D 5e, such as the Cypher System, where characters are hardier than starting characters in D&D and APs are common, but balanced encounters isn't really that important for the game. At the very least, I can't recall off the top of my head of Numenera talking about balancing encounters for the PCs. But the Cypher System is hardly OSR, as by some accounts, it would be more of Neo-Trad game. Likewise, games like Fate, PbtA, or Blades in the Dark also don't really care about balanced combat encounters, but none of these are remotely OSR games.
What "balancing of encounters" tells me is that you want a game where combat is sport and possibly a game where combat is the hammer that most efficiently solves many of the PCs' problems. There is nothing wrong with that.There are rules for balanced encounters again in Fabula Ultima, but that game isn't as light as B/X and the author is pretty vocal in the book
against pre-authored GM stories.
I'm not sure what game will scratch that specific itch for you. But I also don't think that it's the OSR community's obligation to design that game for you nor is it any fault or flaw of the OSR for not having done so. However, if you want that game but are unable to find it, then I recommend that you make it. This is what the initial movers of OSR did when they created retro-clones as well as those that followed who iterated with their own creative visions for OSR games.
I don't think that this provides a good, satisfying, much less good faith, explanation for why Bob World Builder and Kelsey Dionne genuinely like OSR. I get that you desire to paint the entirety of the OSR community with the same broad stroke negative meta-narrative of "rejecting modernity," but I think that it rudely does a huge disservice to the myriad reasons why people may enjoy playing OSR, none of which requires depicting them as backwards reactionaries who hate modern games. Moreover, there are plenty of mechanically dense older games out there.
My personal subjective take is that one reason why people are shifting to OSR games or even those with rules lighter than 5e D&D or PF1/2 - which is not many in the grand scheme of things when D&D 2014/2024 is GOD ALMIGHTY in the market - has less to do with
rejecting modernity and more to do with
adapting to the reality of modernity.
This is to say, I ain't got the time for crunchier rules heavy games like I used to and I have little chance in Hades of getting my partner to play them. I know a number of folks here and elsewhere who have made similar comments before. As I get older, my time for gaming grows shorter, and I can't do the APs anymore. I don't like dealing as much with crunchier rules systems. I don't like having to spend a lot of time prepping and balancing encounters. I want something that is easy for myself and others to jump into and get started with the gaming.
Since you talked about video games before, there is a similar phenomenon happening there too. A lot of smaller and shorter games made by AA and A studios are outperforming those made by AAA video game studios. There are a number of various explanations for this phenomenon, but one of them is just a matter of time commitment. Some of these smaller games or retro games require less of your time. It's not necessarily about rejecting modernity. It's about finding fun games that respect your limited time.
And yet it wasn't about Keep on the Borderlands, and it was Hickman who posted this.
I think that this is fair, and this is also true, IME, with a number of video games. There were many games that I ignored, including initially OSR, because of its sales pitch. But as
@Umbran has said many times before, tell me what is good about your game without saying anything bad about another game. Likewise, I see that
@Whizbang Dustyboots has already addressed how it's more of an exaggerated meme than a reality.
