TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

[Gus L]

Why would we really care anyway? If I didn't enjoy Gary's style of play I sure wouldn't care that he enjoyed it. I also think we can know "playstyle" without being aware of the rules mechanics.

I think there's a bit of a tension here - while certainly one aspect of the OSR project was to look at old rules, in general the approach to this I recall and still think is great is to play with the rule and try to consider how it works, why it's there, and what fun it offers.

So with this you get things like Philotomy's musings (go read it if you haven't).

The tension is that this sort of exploration and experimentation with what I think Grognardia called the "D&D is always right" principle, can easily get simplified down to becoming "how did Gygax play" (etc) and the interpretation then becomes an argument about historical lineage and validity with the goal of play being nostalgic recreation. Instead I find it best to consider these things as new or at least reinterpretations, acknowledging that they are an "OSR" (or post OSR) invention and saying why one likes the result. In a way this is the same issue as "OSR maxims" which are more harmful then not these days because the original understanding as a nuanced and tentative consensus among an active community have been lost.

 

[Emerikol]

I think there's a bit of a tension here - while certainly one aspect of the OSR project was to look at old rules, in general the approach to this I recall and still think is great is to play with the rule and try to consider how it works, why it's there, and what fun it offers.

So with this you get things like Philotomy's musings (go read it if you haven't).

The tension is that this sort of exploration and experimentation with what I think Grognardia called the "D&D is always right" principle, can easily get simplified down to becoming "how did Gygax play" (etc) and the interpretation then becomes an argument about historical lineage and validity with the goal of play being nostalgic recreation. Instead I find it best to consider these things as new or at least reinterpretations, acknowledging that they are an "OSR" (or post OSR) invention and saying why one likes the result. In a way this is the same issue as "OSR maxims" which are more harmful then not these days because the original understanding as a nuanced and tentative consensus among an active community have been lost.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Honestly.

I guess in that sense I'm not truly OSR though I played during the early days. The playstyle and feel was always more important than the mechanics. I did like that 1e had no dissociative mechanics that I could discern but that is about the limit of my concern over mechanics being faithful. I thought 3e was a big improvement but over time it became exhaustingly complete.