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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
A Historical Look at the OSR
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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8516840" data-attributes="member: 7026594"><p>I thought I made a reasonably clear case (and the linked articles documented) that these are three different, but related, things. The central term under discussion in the series of articles is indeed <strong>OSR</strong>, which has multiple different conflicting meanings, at this point, to the extent that it has become much less useful and descriptive as a name. The articles discuss how the term originated and how its usage has mutated and become vague.</p><p></p><p>I'll never dispute that (e.g.) <em>RuneQuest</em>, <em>Traveller</em>, or <em>Chivalry & Sorcery</em> are <strong>Old School</strong> games. But I think it's stretching the bounds of the term <strong>OSR </strong>a bit to include them in that movement, due to their mechanical incompatibility and arguably different play styles from <strong>Old School D&D</strong>. But I think there's at least some argument for including them, as part of OSR as a movement of revisiting Old School games more generally and seeing what we we can recapture and what had value in those games' play.</p><p></p><p>Of course, it follows that for Old School games which have continued in print into the modern day, I'm more dubious about it. <em>Call of Cthulhu</em>, for example, which is an active, current game, which has seen several editions over the years but is not all that much changed. How can you have a rebirth of a thing which never died? A big part of why the OSR exists at all is because there were years-long periods when older D&D books were unavailable legally even as PDFs. That need created the retroclone movement, to bridge that specific gap. There was never the same need to retroclone <em>RuneQuest</em>, say.</p><p></p><p>Moreso, new games which don't actually emulate the play style of Old School D&D, I think, are misnamed when people label them OSR, whether that's (e.g.) <em>Dungeon World </em>or <em>Torchbearer </em>or <em>Troika!</em> Troika! is an interesting case because I think it's a really neat game, and it being built off the old Fighting Fantasy Gamebook mechanics gives it a definite Old School heritage, but I don't think it's built to play much like Old School D&D.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I can sympathize with this quite a bit, but do we need to import that grievance into this discussion? Apropos of this, I notice in reading <em>The Elusive Shift</em> yesterday that the cautionary term One True Way first showed up at least as early at 1976. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p><em>I</em>, for one, am not saying "When The Game Was Played Right", as I'm not opining that there's one right way. And absolutely, you're correct that there were varying styles right from the beginning.</p><p></p><p>I do think that the OSR tends to focus more on a particular style (or perhaps close family of styles), the perhaps more wargame-y, "story is what happens when you talk about the game afterwards, not something the DM scripts aheads of time" approach, perhaps because the perception is that the prominent alternative of focusing on story and narrative become the dominant play style sometime in the 80s. By the time 2nd Ed AD&D came out, it was clearly the dominant form, sometimes referred to as "Trad", now. Part of the point of the OSR wasn't to say "Hey, new games are bad!", but rather to ask, "Hey, did we lose something fun when we moved away from that particular old style?" and "If we examine the old rules from the standpoint of what they functionally support, is there actually good design there that has since been abandoned, as it was seen as not supporting the kind of play the hobby largely moved on to?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 8516840, member: 7026594"] I thought I made a reasonably clear case (and the linked articles documented) that these are three different, but related, things. The central term under discussion in the series of articles is indeed [B]OSR[/B], which has multiple different conflicting meanings, at this point, to the extent that it has become much less useful and descriptive as a name. The articles discuss how the term originated and how its usage has mutated and become vague. I'll never dispute that (e.g.) [I]RuneQuest[/I], [I]Traveller[/I], or [I]Chivalry & Sorcery[/I] are [B]Old School[/B] games. But I think it's stretching the bounds of the term [B]OSR [/B]a bit to include them in that movement, due to their mechanical incompatibility and arguably different play styles from [B]Old School D&D[/B]. But I think there's at least some argument for including them, as part of OSR as a movement of revisiting Old School games more generally and seeing what we we can recapture and what had value in those games' play. Of course, it follows that for Old School games which have continued in print into the modern day, I'm more dubious about it. [I]Call of Cthulhu[/I], for example, which is an active, current game, which has seen several editions over the years but is not all that much changed. How can you have a rebirth of a thing which never died? A big part of why the OSR exists at all is because there were years-long periods when older D&D books were unavailable legally even as PDFs. That need created the retroclone movement, to bridge that specific gap. There was never the same need to retroclone [I]RuneQuest[/I], say. Moreso, new games which don't actually emulate the play style of Old School D&D, I think, are misnamed when people label them OSR, whether that's (e.g.) [I]Dungeon World [/I]or [I]Torchbearer [/I]or [I]Troika![/I] Troika! is an interesting case because I think it's a really neat game, and it being built off the old Fighting Fantasy Gamebook mechanics gives it a definite Old School heritage, but I don't think it's built to play much like Old School D&D. I can sympathize with this quite a bit, but do we need to import that grievance into this discussion? Apropos of this, I notice in reading [I]The Elusive Shift[/I] yesterday that the cautionary term One True Way first showed up at least as early at 1976. :) [I]I[/I], for one, am not saying "When The Game Was Played Right", as I'm not opining that there's one right way. And absolutely, you're correct that there were varying styles right from the beginning. I do think that the OSR tends to focus more on a particular style (or perhaps close family of styles), the perhaps more wargame-y, "story is what happens when you talk about the game afterwards, not something the DM scripts aheads of time" approach, perhaps because the perception is that the prominent alternative of focusing on story and narrative become the dominant play style sometime in the 80s. By the time 2nd Ed AD&D came out, it was clearly the dominant form, sometimes referred to as "Trad", now. Part of the point of the OSR wasn't to say "Hey, new games are bad!", but rather to ask, "Hey, did we lose something fun when we moved away from that particular old style?" and "If we examine the old rules from the standpoint of what they functionally support, is there actually good design there that has since been abandoned, as it was seen as not supporting the kind of play the hobby largely moved on to?" [/QUOTE]
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