OSR A Historical Look at the OSR

[MNblockhead]

I was going to upvote this comment and then, sadly, I remembered that EGG was responsible for most of the junk in Unearthed Arcana which, as I stated in an earlier post, was the death knell for 'Old School' gaming.

I just died a little inside.

Gary Gygax is special and worth celebrating...

• Not because he was a master game designer - he was informed but was also learning by the seat of his pants. Before you can have improvements someone has to put something out to be improved upon. We can acknowledge the accomplishments of the past while still moving forward.
• Not because he was great writer - hey, I enjoy the quirks of his writing, and he had his moments, but I don't consider his writing to be wonderful.
• Not because he held enlightened social views - some of the things he wrote didn't age well and can't be easily explained away by the time in which he was writing.
• Not because he was brilliant business man -- plenty has been written about the history of TSR to make that clear.

But instead because:

• He recognized the potential in Arneson's inchoate game
• He had the experience, network, and work ethic to turn Arnesons jumbled notes into something someone else could use to learn to play and run their own games
• He added a lot of his own creativity to it, much of it informed by the weird Sword & Sorcery literature of his use, which gave D&D its strange, magical feel
• Despite some lapses due to ego and business interests, he was a life-long proponent of gaming and being open to games of all kinds
• He was a vocal and often effective voice of reason defending the gaming community during the Satanic Panic, despite FBI investigations, being shunned by his own religious community, and heaps of negative media pressure.

If D&D has taught me anything, heroes are not perfect.

 

[TerraDave]

I was going to upvote this comment and then, sadly, I remembered that EGG was responsible for most of the junk in Unearthed Arcana which, as I stated in an earlier post, was the death knell for 'Old School' gaming.

I just died a little inside.

It was rushed together to avoid bankruptcy...but also...as I have managed to mention the Arduin Grimoire (multiple times!), Spell Law, and Palladium in other recent threads....messy and half backed could be part of the true old school. So could ambitious and unbalanced. UA had all that, and polearm illustrations. Look at the OD&D supplements. Lots of creativity, but pretty rough around the edges.

It was the desire to smooth off the rough edges and settle everyone into a nice story that killed the Old School.

 

[The Hierophant]

I think a lot of this depends on how old you are and when you started playing.

For me 1e/BEC and earlier is old school. Anything later is Middle school. I still see Unearthed Arcana as old school but it was the beginning of the end and Wilderness and Dungeoneer Survival Guides were the end of Old School.

3.x gets mentioned because it helped OSR via the OGL which permitted OSRIC and could be adapted to make it old school a la C&C. I don’t think 3.x is a streamlined MERP, having played both (and Rolemaster and Spacemaster).

The Champions discussion is interesting, I’d say anything before the Big Blue Book (was that 4th Edition?) was Old School Champions.

 

[Hussar]

Old School pretty much defines someone's tastes. The line that gets drawn is nearly always directly related to whatever line that particular person feels is when D&D "lost" something that it had before. IOW, all Old School actually means is "I like this, and I don't like that, but, in order to make my personal preference seem like it's based on anything other than purely personal taste, I'm going to draw this completely arbitrary line, call it "Old School" and then pretend like it's not simply a matter of personal taste."

 

[Mannahnin]

Old School pretty much defines someone's tastes. The line that gets drawn is nearly always directly related to whatever line that particular person feels is when D&D "lost" something that it had before. IOW, all Old School actually means is "I like this, and I don't like that, but, in order to make my personal preference seem like it's based on anything other than purely personal taste, I'm going to draw this completely arbitrary line, call it "Old School" and then pretend like it's not simply a matter of personal taste."

I think that's uncharitable, though there are no doubt instances where it's accurate. I don't think "old school" is a value judgement. I like and enjoy every edition of D&D, each for its own virtues.

Do you really think the historical overview in the linked series of articles is purely about personal taste? I do think the OSR was started largely due to varying personal tastes, but there are observable changes over time in what was emphasized in adventures and other books TSR put out at different time periods. The differences between (e.g.) the 1E and 2E DMGs are pretty stark.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's funny but I was thinking about whether or not Champions (aka the HERO system) would qualify as 'Old School' while reading the OP. I LOVE Champions but in all honesty I'm not sure it would meet my criteria of 'Old School' as it violates what I consider to be a central tenant of Old School play: character creation/advancement must be very simple. Champions most definitely does not meet that criteria.

I'd note by that standard, probably neither does RuneQuest. You didn't have as much consideration you'd have to put into it there, but the process was not trivial.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think that's uncharitable, though there are no doubt instances where it's accurate. I don't think "old school" is a value judgement. I like and enjoy every edition of D&D, each for its own virtues.

It can seem to be very much a value judgment when encountered in the wild sometimes. That doesn't mean everyone who uses it (or particularly the OSR) is, but the heavy overtone of "kids these days" you hit in many cases of it is hard to miss.

 

[Mannahnin]

It can seem to be very much a value judgment when encountered in the wild sometimes. That doesn't mean everyone who uses it (or particularly the OSR) is, but the heavy overtone of "kids these days" you hit in many cases of it is hard to miss.

Certainly there are grumbly grognards out there. As I recall, when I first joined Dragonsfoot, even 2nd edition was looked at askance, 3rd referred to as TETSNBN (The Edition That Shall Not Be Named), and 4th YAETSNBN (Yet Another Edition That Shall Not Be Named).

Overall it's seemed to me that most of the edition warring and shade throwing at modern editions has died down over the last decade, but there are definitely some folks out there who can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept of "different strokes for different folks".

 

[kenada]

We had a lengthy thread discussing whether introducing people to gaming via OSR games was harmful. It’s not like shade doesn’t also get cast the other way.

 

[RealAlHazred]

It's funny but I was thinking about whether or not Champions (aka the HERO system) would qualify as 'Old School' while reading the OP. I LOVE Champions but in all honesty I'm not sure it would meet my criteria of 'Old School' as it violates what I consider to be a central tenant of Old School play: character creation/advancement must be very simple. Champions most definitely does not meet that criteria.

I would argue that character advancement is simple, but character creation can be complex. The way I explain it is, with D&D you have to make increasingly complex choices when you "level up" your character -- more so in 3.0/3.5 and 4E than 5E, but it's still there; so the D&D system is "back-loaded," where you have to do more work later.

In Hero System, 99% of the complex choices you will ever have to do for your character is done in the very beginning. "Leveling up" your character usually takes only a few minutes, since it's just a matter of adding a few points here or there. So Hero System is "front-loaded."

Admittedly, I mostly run Heroic level games, where nobody is trying to create the power to erase half of the lifeforms in the universe in an instant, or something. Mostly they're just buying skills and slightly improving characteristics; that doesn't take long.