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What Has Caused the OSR Revival?
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<blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 7378352" data-attributes="member: 45197"><p>Hiya!</p><p></p><p> @<em><strong><u><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=4937" target="_blank">Celebrim</a></u></strong></em>, I think I get where you are coming from. From what I gather, you're arguing that having "stuff" in the rules, available to the players, helps fuel their imaginations and helps them reach for goals that are otherwise not mentioned/suggested. Is that a fair assessment?</p><p></p><p>If it is...then I agree. I am a firm believer that a two or three sentence description of an "adventure" (for example) serves a much better purpose than a two or three page description of it. I guess the "less is more" paradigm is at the fore in this case. For example, I would rather have a paragraph in the PHB, under Magic-User say something like:</p><p></p><p> "<em>Magic-Users are always striving for more knowledge. Many will head down various intellectual pursuits such as astronomy, geography/geology, flora and fauna, biology, etc, trying to find new ways in which the great mysteries of magic can be understood, harnessed, and used for creating new spells, items, construction, and so forth</em>". </p><p></p><p>I would much rather have that (and I think it's preferable) than to have a multi-page chapter in a book detail a whole bunch of charts, tables, DC's, costs, times, and formula that move the game more towards "account and numbers management" thing. This is just a play style thing, probably. I think that it is in this "non-numerical focus" that a lot of people like OSR type "rules".</p><p></p><p>Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that OSR games were "less numerical" (as I said, my fave is 1e/Hackmaster4, so I have a LOT of that sort of thing)...but in regard to a more modern players understanding of what parts make up "needed information/rules", OSR games lack a lot of that Player-specific info. A Modern Player would, for example, "expect" to have access to rules on how to make magic items. Exact costs, in time, gold, XP, or whatever, that would yield X% chance of success. But an OSR Player would only "expect" that at some point the DM would inform them "You can now research how to make potions", and the DM would be the one in 'control' of all the numerical stuff. The player would only know that they can try and figure out how to make a potion of invisibility...but that's it.</p><p></p><p>That's an important, imho, difference between OSR and non-OSR type rules systems. In an OSR system, the lack of something in the rules system frequently meant that it was up to the DM to inform the player of something...and not the designer/book's job to do so. Most of the stuff you mentioned in your above post (the telescope construction, observatory, etc) would fall into that category for OSR. In OSR systems it's up to the DM to extrapolate his/her own rules and systems for such things and then inform the player of them. Players were always free to just decide "I want to make a boat! What do I have to do?", but then it was the DM that decided how easy, hard, simple, or detailed the task would be "You have Fisherman as a secondary skill? Ok. You can make simple boats with a single sail, like a dory or something. It will take about a month and cost about five times the cost of a wagon". With non-OSR, there would be construction rules for this and the player would then inform the DM "I made a single-sail boat, 20'x9'x3'. Here's the stats for it...". It's that "reversal of power" that is the key.</p><p></p><p>Ok. I kinda rambled a bit there. Sorry. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> My point is that I think it boils down to a "The DM tells...." vs. "The Player tells...". With the first, there doesn't need to be detailed rules as the DM will create/modify rules and systems in the game to introduce to his Players. With the second, it is required simply because the Players don't get to decide it's only going to cost 1sp to build a Galleon and take only two days to build, so they need specific rules already printed in the book.</p><p></p><p>^_^</p><p></p><p>Paul L. Ming</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pming, post: 7378352, member: 45197"] Hiya! @[I][B][U][URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=4937"]Celebrim[/URL][/U][/B][/I], I think I get where you are coming from. From what I gather, you're arguing that having "stuff" in the rules, available to the players, helps fuel their imaginations and helps them reach for goals that are otherwise not mentioned/suggested. Is that a fair assessment? If it is...then I agree. I am a firm believer that a two or three sentence description of an "adventure" (for example) serves a much better purpose than a two or three page description of it. I guess the "less is more" paradigm is at the fore in this case. For example, I would rather have a paragraph in the PHB, under Magic-User say something like: "[I]Magic-Users are always striving for more knowledge. Many will head down various intellectual pursuits such as astronomy, geography/geology, flora and fauna, biology, etc, trying to find new ways in which the great mysteries of magic can be understood, harnessed, and used for creating new spells, items, construction, and so forth[/I]". I would much rather have that (and I think it's preferable) than to have a multi-page chapter in a book detail a whole bunch of charts, tables, DC's, costs, times, and formula that move the game more towards "account and numbers management" thing. This is just a play style thing, probably. I think that it is in this "non-numerical focus" that a lot of people like OSR type "rules". Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that OSR games were "less numerical" (as I said, my fave is 1e/Hackmaster4, so I have a LOT of that sort of thing)...but in regard to a more modern players understanding of what parts make up "needed information/rules", OSR games lack a lot of that Player-specific info. A Modern Player would, for example, "expect" to have access to rules on how to make magic items. Exact costs, in time, gold, XP, or whatever, that would yield X% chance of success. But an OSR Player would only "expect" that at some point the DM would inform them "You can now research how to make potions", and the DM would be the one in 'control' of all the numerical stuff. The player would only know that they can try and figure out how to make a potion of invisibility...but that's it. That's an important, imho, difference between OSR and non-OSR type rules systems. In an OSR system, the lack of something in the rules system frequently meant that it was up to the DM to inform the player of something...and not the designer/book's job to do so. Most of the stuff you mentioned in your above post (the telescope construction, observatory, etc) would fall into that category for OSR. In OSR systems it's up to the DM to extrapolate his/her own rules and systems for such things and then inform the player of them. Players were always free to just decide "I want to make a boat! What do I have to do?", but then it was the DM that decided how easy, hard, simple, or detailed the task would be "You have Fisherman as a secondary skill? Ok. You can make simple boats with a single sail, like a dory or something. It will take about a month and cost about five times the cost of a wagon". With non-OSR, there would be construction rules for this and the player would then inform the DM "I made a single-sail boat, 20'x9'x3'. Here's the stats for it...". It's that "reversal of power" that is the key. Ok. I kinda rambled a bit there. Sorry. :) My point is that I think it boils down to a "The DM tells...." vs. "The Player tells...". With the first, there doesn't need to be detailed rules as the DM will create/modify rules and systems in the game to introduce to his Players. With the second, it is required simply because the Players don't get to decide it's only going to cost 1sp to build a Galleon and take only two days to build, so they need specific rules already printed in the book. ^_^ Paul L. Ming [/QUOTE]
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