Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
Forking this tangent over from the Full and Glorious History NuTSR thread for possible further discussion, and to share the series of blog articles about the history and evolution of the OSR movement and the term OSR, from last year. There are five of them, the first coming out almost a year ago, and the fifth and final installment just last month. I think I first encountered them last week, and I trolled back in this forum a bit and didn't see a thread about them.
In brief:
Old School as a descriptor is applied to a lot of games, mostly relative to the perspective of the speaker. I've seen "anything prior to the release of 3rd edition D&D" used, but even 3rd ed is more than twenty years old, at this point! Some folks go back a bit further, and describe Old School games as anything published prior to 1990, which seems pretty reasonable and admits the initial release of 2nd ed AD&D (but not its later Skills & Powers and related expansions), but cuts things off like Vampire: The Masquerade and the rest of the Storyteller wave, and other 90s games which specifically pushed back against older tropes. But also admits classic games like Traveller, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulu, West End Games' Star Wars, FASA's Star Trek, and a whole lot of other older stuff. Some folks, however, will complicate it further by using the word "School" to admit in newer games which are modeled on or attempt to replicate the feel or play dynamics of these older games.
OSR (Old School Renaissance, Old School Revolution, or Old School Rules, in my observed descending order of popularity) is an even slipperier and more capacious category, often used to refer to the post-3E movement of play valuing and exploring the above older games, and retro-clones thereof. PLUS often used also brand new games again attempting to replicate or capture the older play dynamics, "look and feel" of old games, even if with new mechanics. PLUS used even more profligately as a marketing label for anything which apes the trade dress, art, or tropes of old school games (you see a lot of crappy 5E modules marketed as OSR because they have dungeons or whatever, even if they clearly weren't designed for OSR play).
IMO the below series of posts accurately describes the history of the OSR and the usage thereof. Long story short, the term originally referred only to pre-WotC D&D in reaction to 3rd (and later) edition(s), but the usage has blurred and broadened.
As a finer-grained distinction, there is also (going back to the early parts of the OSR movement, starting around 2005 or so) the debate over when the D&D Old School ended. Some folks include 2nd ed AD&D due to its large degree of compatibility with 1st ed, but I'm generally in the camp that considers the old school to have largely ended once the Hickman Revolution launched in TSR with products like original Ravenloft and especially Dragonlance. Dragonlance was more or less the beginning of the Adventure Path concept, and essentially the point at which old school exploration and treasure hunting-centered play really left the spotlight, and heroic adventure questing/fantasy novel emulation became the more central focus of D&D design and play. In this interpretation, the Old School of D&D was basically the first ten years, around '74 to '84.
osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com
Yup.
In brief:
Old School as a descriptor is applied to a lot of games, mostly relative to the perspective of the speaker. I've seen "anything prior to the release of 3rd edition D&D" used, but even 3rd ed is more than twenty years old, at this point! Some folks go back a bit further, and describe Old School games as anything published prior to 1990, which seems pretty reasonable and admits the initial release of 2nd ed AD&D (but not its later Skills & Powers and related expansions), but cuts things off like Vampire: The Masquerade and the rest of the Storyteller wave, and other 90s games which specifically pushed back against older tropes. But also admits classic games like Traveller, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulu, West End Games' Star Wars, FASA's Star Trek, and a whole lot of other older stuff. Some folks, however, will complicate it further by using the word "School" to admit in newer games which are modeled on or attempt to replicate the feel or play dynamics of these older games.
OSR (Old School Renaissance, Old School Revolution, or Old School Rules, in my observed descending order of popularity) is an even slipperier and more capacious category, often used to refer to the post-3E movement of play valuing and exploring the above older games, and retro-clones thereof. PLUS often used also brand new games again attempting to replicate or capture the older play dynamics, "look and feel" of old games, even if with new mechanics. PLUS used even more profligately as a marketing label for anything which apes the trade dress, art, or tropes of old school games (you see a lot of crappy 5E modules marketed as OSR because they have dungeons or whatever, even if they clearly weren't designed for OSR play).
IMO the below series of posts accurately describes the history of the OSR and the usage thereof. Long story short, the term originally referred only to pre-WotC D&D in reaction to 3rd (and later) edition(s), but the usage has blurred and broadened.
As a finer-grained distinction, there is also (going back to the early parts of the OSR movement, starting around 2005 or so) the debate over when the D&D Old School ended. Some folks include 2nd ed AD&D due to its large degree of compatibility with 1st ed, but I'm generally in the camp that considers the old school to have largely ended once the Hickman Revolution launched in TSR with products like original Ravenloft and especially Dragonlance. Dragonlance was more or less the beginning of the Adventure Path concept, and essentially the point at which old school exploration and treasure hunting-centered play really left the spotlight, and heroic adventure questing/fantasy novel emulation became the more central focus of D&D design and play. In this interpretation, the Old School of D&D was basically the first ten years, around '74 to '84.
A Historical Look at the OSR — Part I
Old-school Renaissance / OSR theory and design.
osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com
