Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7769359" data-attributes="member: 85555">I would suggest to people, particularly those concerned about research and facts in the article, to get their information on this stuff from the horse's mouth. The OSR is an enormous umbrella that encompasses everything from retro clones meant to emulate old D&D to newer approaches that take the core features of D&D but try to something new within that context. I wouldn't get too hung up on the particular meaning of the R, as that varies tremendously. I think there are some unifying features of OSR, but again, I am just one person who could give my point of view on it. I do think if you want to understand why it has value to people, you probably do need to attempt to see it through their eyes. When I want information on how narrative games work for example, I don't ask an OSR adherent, I ask a person who plays narrative games. And I try to understand what they are actually saying (rather than project my point of view onto what they are saying). Same goes here. I do think there is room for strong POV, rambunctious debate and honest opinion. But I think if your goal is really understanding something,  you would do well to check out some of the OSR games and play them (not saying you are not doing this Aldarc, just making a general statement). Because I do have professional connections with people in the OSR, I don't think I should list off my goto examples as I am biased, but they are easy to find if you look around. Keep in mind with 5E, a lot of OSR gamers are totally fine with the system. There are plenty who don't play it. But it was a system that was designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of playstyles, including the OSR, and something like advantage/disadvantage is a mechanic many in the OSR thought was a good idea. I think with the OSR there is more of a divide between the OSR style and 4E and 3E, than with 5E, 1E and old D&D (while I personally like 2E, I find a lot of people in the OSR don't like its aesthetic or the approach to adventure content that became the norm in that period). But 5E is a system I see plenty of OSR GMs willing to run or play. In terms of what unifies the OSR, I'd say there is great emphasis placed on what people find works consistently at the table. There isn't an avoidance of innovation, but there is a mindset that innovation for its own sake, isn't useful. So any innovations that get adopted, need to be something that works consistently for people in the community. I think another feature is not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think 'restoration' is definitely the wrong word to describe OSR here, because so many people in it are not interested in rebuilding a replica of classic D&D, as much as they are interested in taking the things that worked well (dungeons, tables, etc) and retaining them, while also innovating and making things easier to run at their own table. Basically I think the default starting point is a belief that there are core conceits and components of classic D&D that just work, and working within this framework can produce results that lead to good long term campaigns. There are lots of people who can do a much better job of explaining and promoting this than I can. What I can say is I've found tremendous utility in the OSR community. I definitely don't run Old D&D, and I do like a lot of newer concepts in my games, but some of the basic elements like 'sandbox', 'living adventure/world in motion', 'tables', 'letting the dice fall where they may', 'accepting lethality', 'accepting that it is a game with unpredictable outcomes', 'explorations and dungeons', 'emulation', 'tables as tools', etc I draw on all the time. And since I've been doing this, my table play has been a lot more successful (I started revising the old D&D books and older rules of other games in the mid-2000s when I kept finding myself frustrated by the current approach to adventures and game balance----eventually my business partner showed me the OSR via Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and I started getting into the advice and blogs, even if I didn't tend to use the classic rules as much).</blockquote>

Verification