D&D General Matt Colville: "50 years later we're still arguing about what D&D even is!"

Off the top of my head

Into the Odd
Electric Bastionland (and soon Mythic)
Ultraviolet Grasslands
Yoon-Suin
Troika!

A lot of the leading lights of the NSR really like the random, gonzo elements of OSR.
I've never heard of any of those. Good information.
 

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I think you are including just a check for failure in some of those examples. I think DCC goes a lot farther. You pretty much have to chance to blow yourself up with every spell cast it seems.
Blow yourself up chance and really variable success effects with every casting roll.
 


Ever since finishing Of Dice and Men and Slaying the Dragon I've been interested in getting another book about D&D history. I think this has solidified my choice for the next one. I really enjoy reading old magazines and what gamers thought back then. It's pretty easy to find almost the entirety of Dungeon and Dragon archived online and I've read through quite a few of the former. So this book that apparently condenses a lot of these texts into one body should be an interesting read.

I'm a big Colville fan, so I'm also just happy to see another long video of his. I know the guy is busy with new stuff these days, but damn if I don't miss his old stuff.
 

What other games are that way? All the real clones are D&D straight down the line. C&C is definitely not that way. I'm not saying there are no games other than DCC as I am not all knowing about all games. There are a lot that are not that way though.
Shadowdark has similar rules. IIRC, Forbidden Lands did the same thing. The idea of magic blowing up in the wielder's face is a thing.
 

I think you are including just a check for failure in some of those examples. I think DCC goes a lot farther. You pretty much have to chance to blow yourself up with every spell cast it seems.
Speaking as someone who's wizard blew himself up casting a Charm Person spell in Shadowdark, I can attest to that game's similar outlook on spellcasting.
 


Off the top of my head

Into the Odd
Electric Bastionland (and soon Mythic)
Ultraviolet Grasslands
Yoon-Suin
Troika!

A lot of the leading lights of the NSR really like the random, gonzo elements of OSR.
ItO 2014, EB 2020, UG 2018, Y-S 2nd ed 2023, Troika! 2019, looks like?

Shadowdark has similar rules. IIRC, Forbidden Lands did the same thing. The idea of magic blowing up in the wielder's face is a thing.
SD 2023, FL 2018.

So these, plus Tales of Argosa (2016), the GLOG (2016), and 5 Torches Deep (2019), so far.

Only two of these are 10+ years old, where the oldest retroclones are approaching 20 (OSRIC 2006, BFRPG and LL 2007).

Seems like it's something that's increased in prevalence over time, and mostly appeared in more recent "nuSR" games. DCC was well ahead of the curve doing it back in 2012, when the OSR scene was almost exclusively TSR editions or very faithful retroclones.

I'm going to guess that most of the later ones have more limited randomness than DCC for a couple of likely reasons. 1) The practical consideration of page count. 2) That level of randomness has fairly limited appeal, so the later games scaled it back.

I would also theorize that this randomness is both related to the general OSR fondness for random elements, and to the need for some new ground to tread after the core, predictable, reliable D&D magic system had been cloned a bunch of times. Altering the magic system is one of the logical areas for innovation.
 

ItO 2014, EB 2020, UG 2018, Y-S 2nd ed 2023, Troika! 2019, looks like?


SD 2023, FL 2018.

So these, plus Tales of Argosa (2016), the GLOG (2016), and 5 Torches Deep (2019), so far.

Only two of these are 10+ years old, where the oldest retroclones are approaching 20 (OSRIC 2006, BFRPG and LL 2007).

Seems like it's something that's increased in prevalence over time, and mostly appeared in more recent "nuSR" games. DCC was well ahead of the curve doing it back in 2012, when the OSR scene was almost exclusively TSR editions or very faithful retroclones.

I'm going to guess that most of the later ones have more limited randomness than DCC for a couple of likely reasons. 1) The practical consideration of page count. 2) That level of randomness has fairly limited appeal, so the later games scaled it back.

I would also theorize that this randomness is both related to the general OSR fondness for random elements, and to the need for some new ground to tread after the core, predictable, reliable D&D magic system had been cloned a bunch of times. Altering the magic system is one of the logical areas for innovation.
Agree with most of that. Although I think possibly Lamentations of the Flame Princess (2009) might be the oldest example of an OSR game going from "mostly pure retroclone" to "clone with experimentations", especially with tone and content focus.

You can start to see a focus on "principles of play" over pure cloning as far back as Philotomy's blog posts in 2007 and Matt Finch's "Primer to Old School Play" in 2008, I think at least some of the focus on randomized elements, and away from metagame choice, arose from the popularization of those play principles.
 

Agree with most of that. Although I think possibly Lamentations of the Flame Princess (2009) might be the oldest example of an OSR game going from "mostly pure retroclone" to "clone with experimentations", especially with tone and content focus.

You can start to see a focus on "principles of play" over pure cloning as far back as Philotomy's blog posts in 2007 and Matt Finch's "Primer to Old School Play" in 2008, I think at least some of the focus on randomized elements, and away from metagame choice, arose from the popularization of those play principles.
Sure, sure.

I'm mostly just thinking in terms of the magic system. Now that you mention it, LotFP also added a dash of additional randomness to that, just through the Summon spell, which both made summoning unpredictable and dangerous, but also had a bunch of absolutely bonkers miscast possibilities, in keeping with the desired cosmic horror theme. LotFP did have a number of other mechanical tweaks and innovations (like slot based encumbrance, as I recall). Though the main one in magic was removing spells which made magic flashy or allowed it to easily circumvent problems like curses, death, or detecting evil people easily.
 

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