OSR Is there room in modern gaming for the OSR to bring in new gamers?

[TwoSix]

Yeah, the silly "must be like TSR rules" purity test is bogus. Heck, the Black Hack 2e doesn't look much like AD&D anymore, so I suppose it's not OSR enough?

Yea. I mean, I can understand the distinction for purposes of taxonomy; there's a big difference between Labyrinth Lord and OSE compared to say a GLOG or a Whitehack. But I wouldn't push them out of the OSR bucket.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yea. I mean, I can understand the distinction for purposes of taxonomy; there's a big difference between Labyrinth Lord and OSE compared to say a GLOG or a Whitehack. But I wouldn't push them out of the OSR bucket.

I'm not sure it's a needed distinction, except maybe to say a game is a retroclone or not. Once you start making changes to the ruleset, superficial similarity can be very deceiving in how it actually plays. Small changes can have big ripples. The OSR tag is more about a shared set of play agendas, which retroclones can do and which highly innovative modern games can also do. It isn't about how much it looks like Red Box or AD&D. That's a very silly distinction.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't think it's all about the rules themselves, I think the OSR has an image issue. Whether it's deserved or not the OSR (products and people involved in it) have a reputation for being unwelcoming to people of color. people of alternate lifestyles and so on... and lacking the willingness to change in order to become more welcoming.

Indeed. I think the problem has been amplified by two main reasons
1. The general polarization of folks anyway into more extreme camps over the past decade (just look at political divides)
2. When WoTC moved to be more inclusive as a mission statement, the folks that didn't like that moved into OSR forums to complain about it.

Those two things are certainly, in my mind anyway, big contributors as to the reputation the OSR community is getting. It's one thing to look back at TSR era D&D and say "Yeah, it wasn't very inclusive or welcoming, and has some problematic areas because it was a product of its time and we've learned since then", and another to say "that's how it should be and never should have changed, and anyone wanting to change it is badwrong." (usually along with buzzwords like woke, sjw, etc thrown in). The latter is where the problem lies.

I think that there is some truth to that, and I hate it.

I have stated before that the amazing thing about D&D "back in the day" when the Old School was the New School and the grognards were the wargamers who refused to play the newfangled roleplaying games ... was that it was so welcoming!

Sure, D&D had some popularity, but for the most part, it was always a haven for those that were the outcasts of the time- the people that preferred reading books to TV, that kids at the high school that weren't running for Prom King & Queen, the ones that knew when the re-runs of Star Trek:TOS were on the UHF and when Doctor Who was on PBS ('Murika!). The fact that there was a welcoming community for so many was amazing- and there were conventions and magazines and it was good.

In retrospect, of course, it wasn't that welcoming; it was primarily welcoming to white males. I think that this was reflective of societal issues at the time, but it was certainly there. That said, it is deeply disturbing to me that there are people that have essentially turned what was a bug (the exclusion of certain people) into a feature, and are using that as a cudgel to exclude people. Which is so contrary to the ethos of a game that welcomed people that often didn't find a welcoming spot elsewhere.

Grrrr. Anyway, big thanks to @Sacrosanct for this thread and for his upcoming Chromatic Dungeons project, which is an inclusive OSR.

Thank you. I'm trying. I know I'm just one guy, and a little guy at that. But I'm trying to listen to the people who have been affected, and using what resources I have to help, and to act as a counter voice to those who are trying to be gatekeepers in the OSR in a toxic manner.

As we have discussed in this thread. there absolutely is room for modern gamers to enjoy a playstyle of the OSR (as described by people upthread). By not representing who gamers actually are, but only one demographic, is an impediment to getting new gamers into OSR style games. I want to ensure that all gamers can pick up this book and see themselves being represented. I've given many corporate presentations on diversity and privilege over the years, and that's a big issue: to feel like people like you are being represented. And I hired people from many different diverse groups and backgrounds, to ensure I was doing it the right way.

Then add on to that modern mechanical changes to make it more intuitive* and welcoming (ascending AC, replacing race with ancestries, etc), and I hope that it's a game that captures the feel of TSR era D&D while also being welcoming and inclusive of all gamers.

*Despite attempts of many, there is no one true way to define the OSR. There are a lot of overlapping themes, like rulings over rules, quick play, zero to hero, higher lethality, etc, but a game can be OSR and not necessarily use THAC0 or an attack matrix.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think the premise of this thread, and many of the responses, absolutely misunderstands what OSR is. It is not a return to older editions of D&D, although that's a small part of it. It is, instead, a massively creative movement that is taking games in new directions altogether, based on a few core assumptions about play.

If this is true, then @Retreater is right, the movement needs a new name.

If the games are going in new directions, then using 'Old School' and 'Renaissance' in their identifiers are the wrong way to go about it. Both of those terms don't mean going in new directions, they mean a return to something that has past.

That being said... there is nothing inherent with older styles of roleplay gaming that preclude new and/or younger players from playing them. Rather, they just don't have the facetime or cache of modern gaming that would pull new/young players towards them. There's no OSR game on the shelves of Target. There's no famous OSR Streamed Play group on Twitch. There are no OSR articles in places like Forbes magazine every couple of months talking about all the new products coming out. So while there's nothing stopping a new player from playing OSRIC... there's no wide open door with a crowd on the other side welcoming and ushering them through either.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If this is true, then @Retreater is right, the movement needs a new name.

If the games are going in new directions, then using 'Old School' and 'Renaissance' in their identifiers are the wrong way to go about it. Both of those terms don't mean going in new directions, they mean a return to something that has past.

That being said... there is nothing inherent with older styles of roleplay gaming that preclude new and/or younger players from playing them. Rather, they just don't have the facetime or cache of modern gaming that would pull new/young players towards them. There's no OSR game on the shelves of Target. There's no famous OSR Streamed Play group on Twitch. There are no OSR articles in places like Forbes magazine every couple of months talking about all the new products coming out. So while there's nothing stopping a new player from playing OSRIC... there's no wide open door with a crowd on the other side welcoming and ushering them through either.

I'll get behind thhis as soon as the popular movement to stop calling new editions D&D. 5e needs a separate name to distinguish that it's not like AD&D!!!

Or, maybe, purity to rules was never what OSR was about.

 

[loverdrive]

Well, yeah, you can bring new players into OSR, sure. But at this point, that would be like bringing them to a superficially similar, but actually very different hobby.

And because for some stupid reason people insist that all the things under the sun with dice and charsheets fall into the same category, that maybe be something they'll need to unlearn.

Rather, they just don't have the facetime or cache of modern gaming that would pull new/young players towards them.

Modern gaming, sadly, doesn't have any cache either. Midschool steals the show, thanks to papa hasbro's money, lol.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'll get behind this as soon as the popular movement to stop calling new editions D&D. 5e needs a separate name to distinguish that it's not like AD&D!!!

Don't we already have that distinction? AD&D and D&D are two separate names.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Don't we already have that distinction? AD&D and D&D are two separate names.

Narrows eyes. Glares suspiciously. Suspects someone is having a lark.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, yeah, you can bring new players into OSR, sure. But at this point, that would be like bringing them to a superficially similar, but actually very different hobby.

Huh? Someone playing a B/X clone and someone playing 5e are not playing very different hobbies. They are both playing TTRPGs, and both playing D&D. It's literally the same hobby, as the word "hobby' is defined.

It would be like arguing that someone who has a hobby collecting matchbox cars has a very different hobby than someone who collects Hot Wheels.

 

[loverdrive]

Huh? Someone playing a B/X clone and someone playing 5e are not playing very different hobbies. They are both playing TTRPGs, and both playing D&D. It's literally the same hobby, as the word "hobby' is defined.

It would be like arguing that someone who has a hobby collecting matchbox cars has a very different hobby than someone who collects Hot Wheels.

Well, yeah. It's not like they have shared best practices, or can meaningfully help each other to achieve their goals. And, well, collecting different things are different hobbies in my book. It's not like I, while collecting firearms, can meaningfully talk to a hot wheels collector beyond the way I can talk to someone interested in, idk, tango dancing. Sure, we can talk passionately about our things, and it may be a very fun conversation, but we wouldn't be able to exchange experience in a way where we learn something applicable to our hobbies.

And, to take a step further. TTRPGs are literally table-top (well, sure we have VTTs, but there's a Tabletop Simulator). Can you give a meaningful advice to someone playing Munchkin, or, hell, chess? Can they give you one? Sure, they can give you some cool ideas, but that's not that different from watching a documentary on butterflies and getting cool ideas from there.

Old school (where players try to overcome fictional challenges with their wits, with the GM being an impartial judge) is very different from Mid school (where players are going through an adventure path, with the GM being game designer, narrative designer and level designer), which is very different from New school (where the players actively work together to create a cool and engaging story, exploring a theme and basically having an allegorical debate on real-world subjects, with or without a GM). There are barely any shared best (and words) practices, other than not being a dick and bringing snacks with you.

If one would try to approach a New School game with Old School expectations, like "oh, that's a TTRPG, I've been playing TTRPGs for my whole life, this is basically the same thing", they would end up being disappointed (and possibly leave others disappointed too). And vica versa, yeah.

If one would try to approach a New School game like a separate entity, they wouldn't have the same problems. They may not like it, for one reason or another, but they wouldn't be frustrated when familiar patterns don't work. Or maybe they will like it, for other reasons than what they like the Old School for.

Jumping into the analogy land, if I'd try to play Call of Duty (an arcade FPS) the same way I play ArmA (a military simulator), I would have very bad time -- because Call of Duty and ArmA have almost nothing in common. Yeah, I move with WASD and I look around with mouse, and R is a reload key, but other than that, they are just... Incompatible.


It doesn't mean that we should grab our rifles and defend our hobbies from outlanders or whatever. It means, that it's valuable to embrace the differences, and leverage them.