OSR What does OSR mean to you? What do you value most in an OSR game?

[The Soloist]

wiki: By the early 2020s, the OSR had inspired such diverse developments in tabletop gaming that new classifications such as "Classic OSR", "OSR-Adjacent", "Nu-OSR" and "Commercial OSR" were being used.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

The OSR is a RPG design movement started in the mid 00s as a direct reaction to the release and prevalence of D&D 3e/The D20 System developed by WoTC. The OSR takes inspiration from and/or seeks to recreate the original TSR era D&D in designing new systems. The OSR has two goals which may converge or diverge to different extents depending on the individual:

• Creating systems and/or adventures which have direct mathmatical compatibility with TSR era D&D, such that the existing TSR library can continue to be used with new this new content and vice versa (very important early on with the push for retroclones, since there was no legal digital version of those edition, and physical copies were out of print)
• Creating systems and/or adventures around modern "OSR sensibilities" - community-developed principles which were created directly as opposition to the design of D&D 3rd edition: GM rulings over detailed rules, House rules over RAW, random/unbalanced over balanced encounters, simple+random PCs vs optimizable PCs with lots of skills/feats/abilities, and location driven adventures over plot driven adventures. These principles are expressed in the various OSR "primers" released over the years by notable authors.

Nowadays people tend to use the OSR to mean specifically the second goal, and have ret-conned the design intent to oppose the current edition of d&d (5e) rather than to oppose 3e as originally envisioned.

Importantly - OSR's identity is tied fully and wholely to defining itself against the various editions of D&D and their surrounding play cultures. It is not a movement about old games in general - it is specifically and exclusively about D&D. OSR is a relatively modern invention - the design goals and sensibilities of the OSR exist only as a reaction to the development of D&D under wizards of the coast, and has nothing to do with the many ways that players in 1974-1999 actually played.

To answer your specific questions:

A game is an OSR game if it fulfills one or both of the following: it is mathematically and procedurally compatible with a TSR era edition of D&D with minimal conversion, and/or it is designed in direct opposition to as many of 3rd edition's design principles as possible. A game cannot be an OSR game if it is not trying to be D&D - things like PBTA games or Call of Cthulhu for example simply are not relevant to the conversation.

 

[Jack Daniel]

For the history of the OSR, this.

For the purpose of the OSR, this.

For the best approach to OSR style play in small-scale, at-the-table terms, this.

For large-scale, campaign-level play, a game is more old-school the more it has of the following: an open table, character stables, alignment as player faction or "team," strict time records, a persistent milieu which is both a hard landscape sandbox to explore and an immersive sim to interact with, and a scrupulously impartial (in the wargaming sense) referee.

TSR D&D mechanics are a given. Not strictly necessary, but since the play-style came into being as an exercise in understanding and/or justifying those mechanics, TSR D&D will always be the de facto best fit for the play-style.

EDIT: Oh, and for what it's worth, I summarize my personal approach to old-school play on pp. 1–4 of my house rules document.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On the other hand, I haven't seen that term NuSR before.

The OSR space is also defined by a lot of people who want to kick people out of their club by saying that what those people are doing isn't what we people are doing.

Truthfully, most allegedly OSR and neo- or nu- or N-SR stuff is broadly compatible anyway and the fun police won't show up if you decide to run Keep on the Borderlands using Cairn.

 

[Morrus]

Rules light games tend to have little or none of that. They just have minimalist rules and leave it to the reader to learn through trial and error how to be a gamemaster.

I don't think that's true.

 

[The Soloist]

The OSR space is also defined by a lot of people who want to kick people out of their club by saying that what those people are doing isn't what we people are doing.

Truthfully, most allegedly OSR and neo- or nu- or N-SR stuff is broadly compatible anyway and the fun police won't show up if you decide to run Keep on the Borderlands using Cairn.

Assumptions aside, it’s like painting movements, first came the Impressionists, but than some artists pushed the boundaries and became known as Fauvistes because if their predominant use of bright reds and oranges. Classification are inevitable as time passes.

 

[jdrakeh]

I don't think that's true.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.

 

[Nikosandros]

The OSR space is also defined by a lot of people who want to kick people out of their club by saying that what those people are doing isn't what we people are doing.

Exactly! The are two kind of OSR players. Those who know by heart the to-hit adjustment of a fauchard-fork when attacking a target with splint mail and posers.

 

[The Soloist]

Here we go, again. We were having an agreeable discussion on terminology, and now with one post casting assumptions and aspersions, it was made personal, and us against them.

I'm out, no time for this sh@t.

 

[Nikosandros]

Here we go, again. We were having an agreeable discussion on terminology, and now with one post casting assumptions and aspersions, it was made personal, and us against them.

I'm out, no time for this sh@t.

Aspersion? It was just a little joke about some little-used rules and weapons in AD&D, which, BTW, is a game I love and play.