Gabe of Penny Arcade Slams the OSR

[Ariosto]

Keep in mind when I use the term OSR, I am speaking about what I believe is about it becoming more about advocacy and the "movement" itself than just the simple fact of creating and playing games. Too many people worry about the advocacy part about it--is it growing, who is saying bad things about it, continuous meta-commentary, etc. It's getting a bit about politics, for lack of a better term.

Unlike the "New School Revolution" that is about such "politics" and the corporate status of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (plus whatever Ron Edwards has been smoking lately).

 

[Ariosto]

Before you quit D&D forver let me tell you that we won't be using Original D&D exactly. Rather I've cooked up a system using original D&D systems along with some new ideas as well. The goal is to play a game with the soul of Original D&D, but significantly more humane to the player. ...

The end result was much like what I described in my email to the party. A sort of OD&D roller-coaster with all the twists and turns of old school gaming but minus the freedom and danger.

"More humane to the player" strikes me as funny, both in the sense of humorous, and in the sense of mighty weird from my "old school" perspective. I think one would have to take it way out of context to see it as a slam. The guy is not being obnoxious like certain WotC marketing/evangelism geniuses. 4e just happens to be the kind of thing he likes.

I remember when I was a kid my parents took me to Fort Clatsop in Oregon. ... It's difficult for a young person to imagine time before they existed. ... The experience was really powerful for me and I can remember laying in the back seat of the car during the next leg of the car trip just thinking about what it must have been like to be alive back then.

I hope that as my players picked up their dice and got in their cars to drive home they had similar thoughts about the gamers that came before. People starting campaigns with characters that only had 2 hit points. Characters getting hit and losing levels. Magic items breaking and armor deteriorating. Maybe seeing for just a night what it was like back then, will give them a greater appreciation of the game they're playing now.

The actual games are not museum pieces, any more than is his 4e game. When my friends and I get together to play, it is not as re-enactors dressed in period clothing for the edification of tourists.

But, hey, the original was a product of a different time. Maybe different attitudes are both causes and effects of different times, but I don't see him holding up his own as somehow superior and that of the pioneers as inferior.

I don't see any slam.

 

[Ariosto]

I knew I had seen mention of the "back in time so far the rules change" idea somewhere before. I found a similar idea here at ENworld, from November:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...67503-d-d-4th-edition-world-od-d-feywild.html

... but I'm pretty sure I was thinking of something else, longer ago.

Anyway, I understand that the Swords & Wizardry site got a lot of traffic, so maybe the Penny Arcade thing was a cool heads-up for people interested in checking out something different.

 

[jdrakeh]

Unlike the "New School Revolution" that is about such "politics" and the corporate status of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (plus whatever Ron Edwards has been smoking lately).

There is no "New School Revolution." Or at least there is no group who actually uses that title to identify itself (unlike the OSR). There is a store called "Indie Press Revolution," though it carries all kinds of current creator published games, not just "new school" products.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Unlike the "New School Revolution" that is about such "politics" and the corporate status of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (plus whatever Ron Edwards has been smoking lately).

What is this "New School Revolution"? I have not heard of it and what does Ron Edwards have to do with it.
From what I can tell Mr Edwards has be revolving away for years now. That said I have not heard of him giving any seal of approval to 4e, but then I do not hang out at the Forge. Though I reckon if he did approve of 4e it would be mentioned here.
Or is there another WoTC rpg floating about that I have not heard of either?

 

[Wik]

This thread cracks me up, but I feel bad laughing. It's like when that skinny kid with weak legs trips and falls flat on your face. You know it's bad to burst out laughing, but you do anyway.

Seriously. How can you have a "new school revolution"? Isn't that sort of a contradiction of terms? And I'm still completely confused as to how a guy that has never before played OD&D and is now trying it out is somehow equated with "slamming" this so-called OSR (which is also a sort of funny concept, when you step back and look at the whole picture).

So, yeah. This thread has me confused - baffled, even.

-Wik, King of the not-quite-old, not-quite-new school non-revolution/revival. (Hell, let's call it the "Role-playing Conservation", for those who love acronyms!)

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Unlike the "New School Revolution" that is about such "politics" and the corporate status of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (plus whatever Ron Edwards has been smoking lately).

God, Ron would love to be thrown into a pot with a gamist mainstream game like 4e. Love as in frothing hate. Anyway, let me assure you that new games and gamers are NOT out to get you or your favourite games.

Of course, while i don´t like most games and concepts Ron Edwards has created, ascribing his work to drug use doesn´t help your case at all.

 

[Ariosto]

How can you have a "new school revolution"? Isn't that sort of a contradiction of terms?

No, that is par for the course of revolutions. Down and out with the old, up and in with the new!

Anyway, let me assure you that new games and gamers are NOT out to get you or your favourite games.

So you say. But why do you feel the need to say it? Let's ask the expert:

Your statement appears to be one of the hypersensitivity I mentioned before.

Thanks, Doctor John! There's ointment for that.

And thanks for the demonstrations, y'all!

 

[nedjer]

God, Ron would love to be thrown into a pot with a gamist mainstream game like 4e. Love as in frothing hate. Anyway, let me assure you that new games and gamers are NOT out to get you or your favourite games.

Of course, while i don´t like most games and concepts Ron Edwards has created, ascribing his work to drug use doesn´t help your case at all.

Yeah, by all means shred Ron's 'theories' but misleading, personal attacks wtf is that about?

LMAO off at the notion 4e is 'new'. It's a superhexy, self-parody version of D&D. It wasn't designed to be new; it was designed to keep a core audience of aging gamers (with money) fighting fantasy skirmishes.

It really harks back to an age before D&D, as indicated by the remarkable similarities with old TSR (I think) title Sniper. 40 years old and still the clockwork system tying rpgs to a clockwork age

There remains nothing 'wrong' with that but the idea simply taking a walk round the block will expand the hobby is as laughable as Dragon Age with it's 'where is that unique special Dragon die', and the vanilla 'Dark' wreathed in bloodsplattered comics and videogame tie-ins. You can really hear the parents, school and libraries falling over themselves to get involved with that.

It seems equally unlikely the Modern Warfare 2 kids will set aside the instantaneous blood splatting head shot to demonstrate their mastery of a 10,000+ page rule set.

Worst of all, this endless revisiting of the past stiffles experimentation and novelty. How many 'mainstream' players have even bothered to give Mouseguard a try and put more narrativism into play? How many combat heads have tried the zonal combat with the revised Treasure RPG and caused more mayhem in half-an-hour than six hours of grind? How many have a copy of the Dresden Files on the way just to se if it's going to have anything new to offer?

It costs buttons or nothing to try out new ideas, which could feed into games and gaming but, no, lets just keep our little hamster legs working away at spinning the same old wheel.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

When I first started seeing the term OSR I thought it was NOTHING more complex than a shorthand for, "All those people who think older editions and retroclones contain elements and approaches to the game that are diminished or ignored by recent editions and therefore play and advocate for the older rules/styles." That is, people playing flavors of D&D OTHER than 4E (and generally 3E). I don't think I was mistaken. Problem is then that the same people who have been overly sensitive/fanatic about WHATEVER edition for years now quickly began ascribing political machinations and motivations to its use, so the term has now lost its original apolitical utility.