I Love Old School Games

[aramis erak]

I don't think the term is subjective. It's a category of games based on era -- Generation 1 RPGs like OD&D, Traveller, Gamma World, Tunnels and Trolls, etc...

The "OSR" movement is almost exclusively D&D OE, D&D BX, and AD&D 1E, with some love for GW.

Some one-off efforts have done AMSH, AD&D 2E, and TFT; the TFT effort was just big enough that SJG put a new non-OSR edition into the mix (It's closer to the original than the pseudo-clone Legends of the Ancient World.)

T&T has avoided the OSR movement largely by being still in print. Some of the OSR fans are also T&T fans.... but most of the OSR fans aren't T&T fans, and it's not that popular. And by in print, I mean, the rules are substantially the same as they were in the 1970s, and available both electronically and on dead trees.

Traveller was retrocloned in 1997 or so. Before the open game movement was popular, released under a GNU FDL license. 6 stat was all the impetus Marc Miller needed to get CT back into print. It wasn't until Mongoose pulled a stupid and tried to go to a more restrictive license in MGT2E that the Cepheus Engine actually got traction...

We don't see clones of Star Frontiers.
We don't see clones of James Bond.
We don't see clones of FASA STRPG.
We do, recently, see a pseudoclone of MERP.
We do see clones of WEG SW, but they were done by the new WEG after the end of the old WEG, having rights to the system but not eh setting. D6 Space, and Septimus. Likewise, d6 Indianna Jones was reworked into D6 Adventure. D6 Fantasy can be seen as a pseudoclone of d6 Hercules & Xena, but really doesn't feel like it.;

BRP's mechanics were retrocloned early.. GORE is a clone of CoC... but not much is made of that, and Chaosium is opening up to fan works...

RUneQuest is all about the setting, but is otherwise pretty stock BRP, and thanks to Mongoose, the mechanics are open source. But most of the fans don't use the OSR identity...

... Because OSR is associated with D&D derivatives. And a certain early strident and often toxic group of fans. And controversial designers like Jim Raggi, Adam K., RPG Pundit, and others.

 

[TerraDave]

Any definition of "old school" that includes games from 1999 is pretty useless.

Also, the "What About AD&D!" line of argument in this thread is perplexing, since I didn't mention AD&D, and OD&D and B/X D&D -- both concise, if not clear -- are much more often pointed to as "old school D&D."

If AD&D is not old school, nothing is. Its actually older than B/X.

And B/X did involve 2 boxed sets.

 

[TerraDave]

My OP:



And just to be clear, this was never intended to be an attack on any sort of game, just an expression of the actual joy I felt reading through Gamma World 1E.

I think we are just piling on from the old=concise claim.

Gamma World was a burst of raw creativity that is rare to see these days. Great, great setting elements. As a game it had some issues, and I wonder about long-term campaign play. But yes, it was very cool.

 

[Campbell]

In context of D&D I consider AD&D First Edition old school, but not Second Edition. In the broader context of RPGs in general I do not consider old school all that meaningful of a label.

 

[Reynard]

I concede that this thread was a failure and that celebrating the successes of the early works of the hobby is less compelling than pedantic arguments and goal tending. Congratulations.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is Sparta.

 

[Umbran]

I concede that this thread was a failure and that celebrating the successes of the early works of the hobby is less compelling than pedantic arguments and goal tending. Congratulations.

Well, yeah. When you get people together for a birthday celebration, do people stand around talking about the high quality of birthing the celebrant experienced? No. You get a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday to You," a joke or two about whether the fire department needs to be called to extinguish candles, maybe a toast if you're snooty, and then the thing quickly degrades into discussions of the properties of various cake frostings, how Jenny's kid is doing, and the Local Sports Team's record.

"Celebration" isn't actually a thing that generates discussion (meaning, a give and take of ideas). Celebration is standing up and going, "yeah, that's great!" in a way that isn't going to make for much back-and-forth.

 

[Marc_C]

We don't see clones of Star Frontiers.
We don't see clones of James Bond.

There are clones of Star Frontiers and Top Secret by DwD studio. Frontier Space and Covert Ops.

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Retreater]

Even OSR games fail at this, turning games like B/X (100 pages combined) into 2 or 3 times that length for no real benefit.

I can understand what you're getting at with this. I've recently been looking through Gamma World myself (as well as AD&D and the Rules Cyclopedia). However, I think one of the major factors in larger book size is layout. A lot of the older books have tiny font, presented in three narrow columns. You don't see much large sized art in those books either. A new subheading might appear in the middle of a page without great transition. Important concepts you might have to turn the page and read it on another page when it wouldn't seem natural for a page break.
Old School Essentials, for example, has a larger page count, but it's presented more cleanly than the editions its emulating. Luckily, both options are available depending on the reader's preference.
But I'm right there with you about going back to the roots. If nothing else I think it's a valuable exercise for modern players who want to increase the pace of their games, learn how to adjudicate and make on the fly calls again, and really think creatively again.

 

[Umbran]

Well, a lot of them were pretty bad in the 80's and 90's...

much like a lot of streaming shows now being low-budget piles of steaming...

And much of the OSR, and new school games, too.

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

In the end, the nomenclature is awkward, because "old school" means "traditionalist, with pride". It does not tell you what traditions.