Wolfpack48
Hero
Yeah, in looking at that article, I guess we played pretty much OSR style, though we definitely evolved our style over time.Yeah, it's weird. The OSR basically started with the OGL in 2000. If you want to try to get precise, it was the publication of OSRIC in 2006 that really kicked things off.
At times I'm perfectly aligned with the OSR ethos, other times...not so much. What's weird is that style of play is exactly how we've always played.
When I read the Six Cultures of Play it did not ring true with my experience. What he labels "classic" is something we never did. What he labels "OSR" is how we always played the game. I started in 1984 and that's how we played. In talking with my brothers and their friends, that's how they always played, too.
- Challenge to both characters and "player skill"
- Mix and match rules and abilities and tactics and monsters to keep challenge fresh
- Minimizing creation of new rules
- Puzzles and mysteries as part of player challenge
- Danger, possibility of death
- Weird stuff
- Rulings, not rules
- Random encounters, though these really faded over time in favor of curated encounters/events
- Strongholds, hirelings, henchmen
- Hex crawls
- Psionics, bards
- Weapon lengths
- Really not much at all out of Unearthed Arcana
- Outdoor adventures
- More roleplaying
- Backstory, character personality, character arcs
- Cultural and cult influences (RQ)
- More "realistic" combat (RQ)
- Relative game balance, but not to the point of worrying about perfection
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