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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 9666606" data-attributes="member: 2205">It might just be semantics, but my recollection was that there wasn't really a movement until the retroclones. Sure, AD&D still had its fans, but all of the elements didn't really come together into a movement until the retroclones sparked it. Sure, sure; the elements were already there, but it took the retroclones for the OSR to become a movement, acquire a label, and actually be more than a few curmudgeonly (and proudly so) niche grognard forums talking about old games and how they were still using them. You're saying that there was already a movement that the retroclones hit like a steroid shot; I'm saying that there were elements that could be used to make a movement, but until the retroclones and the actual coining of the OSR label, there wasn't yet a movement. Maybe that's a to-mayto to-mahto thing, but it has some relevance, especially when talking about what the OSR actually is.If (like me) you see the OSR as a movement specifically around reviving interest (and product) in old D&D games via the retroclones and the ability that the retroclones unlocked to produce modules, supplements, or whatever that was compatible with said old D&D games, then much of what people call the OSR today is clearly a spin-off, cadet branch or subsequent development in a totally different direction than the OSR and therefore deserves a different taxonomic label. The idea of the OSR encompassing some kind of revival of "hey, I liked playing Avalon Hill's James Bond and TSR's Top Secret in the 80s too; let's call that part of the movement while we're at it!" doesn't really make sense. Yeah, sure, I liked playing those games too, and I'd probably get a kick out of a reprint of the Dr. No or View to a Kill module—I could put the Duran Duran song on repeat while I read it, even!—what does that have to do with a movement that was specifically about getting old D&D stuff back in the spotlight again? I mean, I was just as sympathetic to the idea of new Star Frontiers stuff as I was new AD&D stuff but just because I thought Star Frontiers was pretty cool and I wouldn't mind playing a mini-campaign in it again (at which point, I'd probably be frustrated with the rules, but who knows?) doesn't mean that I'd ever consider it having much in common with a movement about AD&D.I think a lot of the early OSR people, at least many who posted on the forums that I hung out on, had a bit of PTSD about feeling that their tastes were on the outs, and they often cultivated either preachy or otherwise abrasive posting styles. This generated a lot of "this stuff is in, this stuff is right out, this stuff isn't even a game; this is 'storygames' not an RPG" and other varieties of OneTrueWayism until that got kind of tedious and they either self-segregated to their own online hangouts of some sort, or just got tired of trying to be the prophet crying in the wilderness archetype, but in spite of the excesses of that ~2008-2012 or so era, there's still some value in having enough taxonomic discipline to say "this is the movement, and this other stuff might be just as cool, but it's not the movement, it's something else in parallel, or something else entirely, or an entirely new development that started happening as the movement matured enough to start having its own kids, etc. Which, again, and I'll probably drop out at this point to avoid the temptation to become too repetitive or rambly; the OSR to me is about using old D&D rules, or reasonably close simulacrums of them. The OSR is also a playstyle that developed afterwards, that doesn't really resemble how we played in the 70s or 80s, but is still a reaction to the excesses of the trad style which had been ascendent for decades, and a lot of people were looking for something different. While there was some overlap between people who were into one of those OSRs with those who were in the other OSR, those are still two very different concepts, and there were plenty of people who didn't overlap, so they really probably deserve their own labels. I think the ship has sailed, and we won't get one that everyone can agree on, but the fact that you have to stop and clarify what you mean by OSR when you say it means that the label isn't very useful in actually describing anything, which is unfortunate. The idea that anyone who's a fan of any old game (for who knows what definition of old) is also part of the OSR just borders on confusing and incoherent. If that's part of the OSR, then what in the world is the OSR except a reaction against whatever is seen as mainstream and popular today. It's barely different from "indie" at that point, with the only exception that OSR people don't seem to have much truck with leftover Forge people. Although who knows; how old is Burning Wheel or Dogs in the Vinyard these days? If being a fan of LBB Traveller makes you OSR, then why not being a fan of The Window?</blockquote>

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