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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 8278795" data-attributes="member: 15700">My point that I'm trying to get at is twofold: 1. some of the claims about what the OSR is (and what TSR era D&amp;D was) is along the lines of me saying 4e is a tactical boardgame where you didn't do roleplaying, but just did one giant slog of tactical combat after another where you could only do something if you had a power for it.&nbsp; Maybe because that matched my personal experience, or what I saw, or what I heard.&nbsp; But it's not true.&nbsp; Not of how it was designed, or how people actually played 4e.&nbsp; So I'd caution against making similar assumptions and claims about the OSR that aren't really backed up by any data.2. It seems people are forgetting that AD&amp;D lasted for 25 years-ish.&nbsp; Moldvay's B/X, and Mentzer's BECMI were huge sellers of the brand, and brought in hundreds of thousands of gamers.&nbsp; Those rules still had magic users with 1d4 hp and fighters with 1d8 hp.&nbsp; And yet, that didn't turn away new players.&nbsp; It didn't result in a pile of dead PCs before the night was out.&nbsp; It did the opposite.&nbsp; It brought a meteoric rise of new players to the game.&nbsp; So there doesn't seem to be any actual correlation between more fragile PCs and keeping away new players.&nbsp; The numbers don't back that up at all.Maybe we should stop denigrating playstyles that don't align with our own preferences, especially when the facts don't really back up those criticisms.&nbsp; It's not fair to fans of 4e, and it's not fair to fans of the OSR.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 8278795, member: 15700"] My point that I'm trying to get at is twofold: 1. some of the claims about what the OSR is (and what TSR era D&D was) is along the lines of me saying 4e is a tactical boardgame where you didn't do roleplaying, but just did one giant slog of tactical combat after another where you could only do something if you had a power for it. Maybe because that matched my personal experience, or what I saw, or what I heard. But it's not true. Not of how it was designed, or how people actually played 4e. So I'd caution against making similar assumptions and claims about the OSR that aren't really backed up by any data. 2. It seems people are forgetting that AD&D lasted for 25 years-ish. Moldvay's B/X, and Mentzer's BECMI were huge sellers of the brand, and brought in hundreds of thousands of gamers. Those rules still had magic users with 1d4 hp and fighters with 1d8 hp. And yet, that didn't turn away new players. It didn't result in a pile of dead PCs before the night was out. It did the opposite. It brought a meteoric rise of new players to the game. So there doesn't seem to be any actual correlation between more fragile PCs and keeping away new players. The numbers don't back that up at all. Maybe we should stop denigrating playstyles that don't align with our own preferences, especially when the facts don't really back up those criticisms. It's not fair to fans of 4e, and it's not fair to fans of the OSR. [/QUOTE]

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