Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is there room in modern gaming for the OSR to bring in new gamers?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8272289" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>A key difference between now and the early 1980s is the state and role of video games. Old school D&D with its focus on dungeon exploration and its comparative minimising of the connection between characters and the world to me aspires to be one of a huge range of CRPGs. There is a massive demand for that sort of thing - but in 1983, if you didn't have an Apple II and Ultima almost every RPG I can think of was almost purely text based - meaning that for visualisation a map and minis was outright superior. The 1983 boom was at a specific place in time.</p><p></p><p>By 1986 things had changed. The old days were over. Gygax had been forced out of TSR. The Dragonlance Saga was dominating D&D. And more importantly what a cRPG (and computer action adventure game) was had changed drastically with two 1986 games being the start of a sea change; Dragon Warriors/Dragonquest and the original The Legend of Zelda demonstrating that you could have approachable exploration heavy cRPGs with interaction with NPCs.</p><p></p><p>I'm going to say directly that the original 1986 Legend of Zelda is a better game of dungeon exploration than all but the very best old school games and if we skip forward a decade The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time's Water Temple is a meatier exploration dungeon almost than is possible within the realms of tabletop play. And it's far faster and more responsive with it. Skip forward another decade and World of Warcraft has team exploration and dungeon mastery in dungeons more fully realised than any DM can manage.</p><p></p><p>Can players be brought in by either (a) good communities or (b) a pitch like "It's WoW but just with good people, no griefers, and where you can do things the programmers never thought of" by someone they consider a friend? Yes. A good DM is still an excellent tool for bringing in new gamers <em>no matter what the game system or style. </em>People still get together to play Monopoly or Risk with friends and those are games that are not just surpassed by other media, but actively bad games because people are more important.</p><p></p><p>It's not only the OSR that struggles this way compared to their heyday. Adventure Paths are always going to struggle as The Story of Cloud Strife, the Story of Sora, The Story of Commander Shepherd, the Story of Geralt of Rivia, the Story of Aloy, the Story of Joker, or the Story of Zagreus (to name a few examples) are going to be both more detailed and better targeted than an adventure path and we've basically seen the back of the "realistic" RPG designed to cover every possible combination, with e.g. Hitman 3 or Breath of the Wild able to cope with interactions far better while handling everything in real time.</p><p></p><p> Which is why modern RPGs tend to focus on PC-PC interactions (which is a central feature of Critical Role of course), worlds the PCs are a part of and get to flesh out rather than getting Isikai'd there, and other places where tabletop RPGs still have a significant advantage over CRPGs. And it's these sorts of things that <em>may </em>have been referred to as things good for modern gamers that grognards hate.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 8272289, member: 87792"] A key difference between now and the early 1980s is the state and role of video games. Old school D&D with its focus on dungeon exploration and its comparative minimising of the connection between characters and the world to me aspires to be one of a huge range of CRPGs. There is a massive demand for that sort of thing - but in 1983, if you didn't have an Apple II and Ultima almost every RPG I can think of was almost purely text based - meaning that for visualisation a map and minis was outright superior. The 1983 boom was at a specific place in time. By 1986 things had changed. The old days were over. Gygax had been forced out of TSR. The Dragonlance Saga was dominating D&D. And more importantly what a cRPG (and computer action adventure game) was had changed drastically with two 1986 games being the start of a sea change; Dragon Warriors/Dragonquest and the original The Legend of Zelda demonstrating that you could have approachable exploration heavy cRPGs with interaction with NPCs. I'm going to say directly that the original 1986 Legend of Zelda is a better game of dungeon exploration than all but the very best old school games and if we skip forward a decade The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time's Water Temple is a meatier exploration dungeon almost than is possible within the realms of tabletop play. And it's far faster and more responsive with it. Skip forward another decade and World of Warcraft has team exploration and dungeon mastery in dungeons more fully realised than any DM can manage. Can players be brought in by either (a) good communities or (b) a pitch like "It's WoW but just with good people, no griefers, and where you can do things the programmers never thought of" by someone they consider a friend? Yes. A good DM is still an excellent tool for bringing in new gamers [I]no matter what the game system or style. [/I]People still get together to play Monopoly or Risk with friends and those are games that are not just surpassed by other media, but actively bad games because people are more important. It's not only the OSR that struggles this way compared to their heyday. Adventure Paths are always going to struggle as The Story of Cloud Strife, the Story of Sora, The Story of Commander Shepherd, the Story of Geralt of Rivia, the Story of Aloy, the Story of Joker, or the Story of Zagreus (to name a few examples) are going to be both more detailed and better targeted than an adventure path and we've basically seen the back of the "realistic" RPG designed to cover every possible combination, with e.g. Hitman 3 or Breath of the Wild able to cope with interactions far better while handling everything in real time. Which is why modern RPGs tend to focus on PC-PC interactions (which is a central feature of Critical Role of course), worlds the PCs are a part of and get to flesh out rather than getting Isikai'd there, and other places where tabletop RPGs still have a significant advantage over CRPGs. And it's these sorts of things that [I]may [/I]have been referred to as things good for modern gamers that grognards hate. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is there room in modern gaming for the OSR to bring in new gamers?
Top