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Post by Kainguru on Jul 25, 2012 12:09:34 GMT -8
Hi All I know it gets mentioned a lot but I thought a considered and malted fuelled discussion of the Old School Renaissance would be interesting. Were/are all old game editions that bad or broken? Why the notable drift back to these earlier editions of recent years? Can new game design learn something from the past,, is the future better served by combining the best elements of the old and new (and what elements would they be)?, what old school games still make the hosts smile fondly, shout amaaazing or state 'never stopped playing it'? (Mongoose Traveller is good example of OSR meeting new sensibilities)
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Post by rickno7 on Jul 25, 2012 21:11:12 GMT -8
I feel the OSR craze is equal parts nostalgia(middle age demographic rule #1 is usually find out what that demographic liked in their youth, and redo it, in all markets not just RPG's) and rejection of uber complex rule systems that are bogging down game play.
When it comes to complexity, its always a tug-o-war between trying to simulate everything and trying to remain smooth in gameplay. If you're opening books every other turn, its bogging down. If every action has 4 exceptions that come up so much they feel like rules instead of exceptions, then there is a problem. There is an equal problem when things get too rules light. You get more role-play and not so much "game". I'm seeing some teetering toward that area, where games like Fiasco seem to be getting closer to an improv exercise instead of a game. I'm not saying Fiasco is bad, or has become this, I'm just saying its getting closer and closer to being something other than a table top role playing game. Lady Blackbird, from what I've been reading of it, straddles this line also.
The influence I see from the OSR movement is a streamlining of gameplay, the focus on less rules so that books aren't needed at the table, and a "its ok to kill the characters" attitude that was getting lost in the 2006-2009 era.
Its the mid-80's era coming into vogue that I would be scared of. That's the era of 10,000 charts, and the striving to be the most intricate possible. (shortened, got on a tangent there, sorry)
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jul 26, 2012 1:59:59 GMT -8
In a related discussion would be a Mclaughlin Group-type airing of opinions about whether or not the proliferation of published rule canon has diminished the otherwise ubiquitous need for player-DM trust that permeates an OSR game (or how we played back in the day), and the concept that OSR-style games are actually system agnostic.
Alongside this discussion, or debate, is the question: how can a DM win trust from strangers who appear at a game framed by player expectations from so much published canon? This will effect OSR-style DMs more who, because of the loss of their regular group, seek to play with strangers and less DMs who play strictly by rote rulebook and strangers brought together by system (i.e. rules).
Is the opinion that OSR is better for growing the hobby or is game-experience standardization better? Go!
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 26, 2012 3:07:26 GMT -8
Is the opinion that OSR is better for growing the hobby or is game-experience standardization better? Go! Hmmm that's a hard one (hur hur) to disentangle . . . I would like to say the OSR is the way to go (as an approach rather than a system) as game experience standardisation may limit the potential to grow the hobby by only appealing only to a small selection of potential gamers and as a result excluding others because of its narrow focus.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jul 26, 2012 4:37:16 GMT -8
I have never played with the Happy Jacks group (but I sure would like to play at their table). My impression of them is that all these guys (incl. Kimi) are OSR-types.
OSR-style could use some definition.
And it might surprise people because they are widely played and mostly not "OSR-games." Tappy, huge on crunch, pulled off that Ah-May-ZinG! convention game without player character sheets. He likes the crunch, as he said, but he's also got player trust. That convention game was a triumph of OSR-style.
OSR is not an either/or system. It's not that fluffy games are OSR and crunch are not. OSR is system agnostic and that does not get much discussion. It helps define OSR, beyond the "old guys recapturing youthful play using dead games."
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 26, 2012 5:20:30 GMT -8
I have never played with the Happy Jacks group (but I sure would like to play at their table). OSR is not an either/or system. It's not that fluffy games are OSR and crunch are not. OSR is system agnostic and that does not get much discussion. It helps define OSR, beyond the "old guys recapturing youthful play using dead games." I tend to agree, my preferred system at the moment is Castle & Crusades because I like their elegance with the siege mechanic, it's rules light within most decisions being role played in preference to roll played (the siege engine is often misunderstood such that the Castle Keepers Guide felt it necessary to expound upon its proper application . . . Once you get it you get it . . . Savvy?). I just bought the Pathfinder Core rules and I'll admit I'm tempted to use that system instead . . . But with OSR sensibilities as a refined definition in the posts above - just because you can settle an adjudication with a die roll doesn't mean that you have to default to that position automatically. Plus a generous amount of "yes I know it's an option as character class but not in my campaign, sorry, it just wouldn't fit properly" (curse me one and all if you want but no matter the system or the campaign I will never allow fucking dragon born or war forged . . . I'm sorry but I just cannot escape the impression that players that want to be dragon born or war forged are really nothing more than cleverly disguised munchkins angling for a 'race that can shit on everyone else and win' . . . It's bad enough with fucking Drow refugees flooding the surface world thanks to Drizzt, at least strictly enforcing the penalties for being above ground can discourage most sensible people)
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Post by jazzisblues on Jul 26, 2012 6:29:57 GMT -8
Having just run a 1st Edition AD&D game at GameX in May I do get the nostalgia part of it. When I first started prepping for the game I read over the rules again and found myself saying, "We played this game why?" But then I ran the game in the play test and at the con and I was reminded why we played it. We played it because it was f'ing fun. Some of the things in it were kind of ridiculous but the game was fun.
For myself I like game systems that have enough mechanic to work with to make the things I want to make, but do not get in the way of game play. Everyone knows I love Savage Worlds, but I've said many times that it's not actually my favorite game system. That position is reserved for Hero. Yes I know the common perception is that Hero is a nightmare for anyone who doesn't have a PhD in Math, but it's really not true. The setup for Hero is complicated and takes a fair bit of work. The implementation in game play is not troublesome at least not in my experience. And yes I know it is possible to make a character that will mop the floor with everything. That's also true of every other game system if the gm is not paying attention to what's going on when the characters are built.
Just my 2 krupplenicks worth, your mileage may of course vary.
JiB
P.S. What I love about Savage Worlds is how quickly I can put a game together and how exciting the basic mechanic is.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 26, 2012 7:38:29 GMT -8
An uncommon thought just occurred to me with respect to the proliferation of Drow refugees on the surface world. In the UK there is, mainly encouraged by the likes of such tabloids as The Daily Mail and The Sun - both periodicals are very low on my list of able tolerate reading before my head explodes with frustration and shouts of "that's not fucking news" "that's not grammar or even a cogent paragraph" "what god damn bile are you peddling to the incoherent masses you arse raping bastards" - sorry I have very strong feelings about our biased media in the UK, goat fornicators and myth generators all. As I was saying they generate a certain amount of anti immigrant and anti refugee sentiment from the less aware segments of the voting population (who refuse to acknowledge the historical truth of the British isles being the genetic and cultural pissing pot of Europe for centuries resulting in what can only be called hybrid vigour which contributed in establishing the foundations of the industrial revolution before anyone else and cemented the place of the Empire in all it's glory until its declined after WW I and II) . . . could not a similar situation exist in modern fantasy settings plagued by Drizzt clones? I can see it now Drow immigration camps and border patrols checking for 'illegals', Drizzt clones having to prove that they have needed skills before they're allowed onto the surface, adventurer guilds complaining "they took our jobs" . . . Pure blood surface elves acting like Nazi's towards any Drow/Drizzt clones on their lands by herding them off to be 'resettled' (until adventurers find out the ghastly truth). Rich well to do families employing illegal Drizzt clones to do menial work because they're cheap and are happy to live in a basement without windows . . . (nb: on a personal level and for the record I hate anti immigration sentiments and cultural elitism - its irrational, counter productive and antithetical to humanity's positive social development . . . I just hate Drizzt clones that's all (and dragonborn, and war forged, but especially dragonborn - I think I'd die of apoplexy if I encountered a player dragonborn Drizzt clone) )
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2012 14:10:18 GMT -8
I have never played with the Happy Jacks group (but I sure would like to play at their table). My impression of them is that all these guys (incl. Kimi) are OSR-types. OSR-style could use some definition. And it might surprise people because they are widely played and mostly not "OSR-games." Tappy, huge on crunch, pulled off that Ah-May-ZinG! convention game without player character sheets. He likes the crunch, as he said, but he's also got player trust. That convention game was a triumph of OSR-style. OSR is not an either/or system. It's not that fluffy games are OSR and crunch are not. OSR is system agnostic and that does not get much discussion. It helps define OSR, beyond the "old guys recapturing youthful play using dead games." I don't get it, aren't all OSR systems based on DnD? How can it be system agnostic? Explain please... Is it about capturing the "Old school feel" in a game? I may not have been alive in the 70s but I would bet that, even back then, every table had its own playstyle.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 26, 2012 15:03:02 GMT -8
There were more games than just D&D in the day . . . I remember by 1981 the shelves contained traveller, rune quest, tunnels & trolls, high fantasy, the fantasy trip , chivalry & sorcery, mercenaries spy's and private eyes, top secret, boot hill, gamma world, dragon quest, gang busters . . . Really so many systems it was terrifying even in the backwaters of Oz, a wall of books all enticing and offering opportunities Some were good many were pure shite - badly designed, poorly edited opportunistic knock offs . . .
But many RPGs read like a biblical family tree . . . Rune quest begot BRP which begot stormbringer and hawkmoon and Cthulhu which then begot rune quest deluxe who then begot runequest II whom begot legendary whilst fantasy trip fathered gurps and all this while traveller survived like methuselah after a long strange trip through to the new era and back again. Middle earth role playing sired role master and woe the world was cast in shadow and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the gaming table. Others, like the babies of long gone Sparta were left alone on the hill sides to die . . . RIP dragon quest, high fantasy and the rest . . .
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2012 1:19:17 GMT -8
Yes there were other games than DnD back then but aren't the games of the OSR movement D&D/AD&D clones? Renaissance means rebirth, are there other old school systems getting "reborn" out there on the internets but D&D? I see the point of going back to the roots with D&D since it is a completely different game nowadays, but most other systems remain loyal to their roots, with a few rules tweaks and streamlinings.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 27, 2012 2:02:46 GMT -8
Off the top of my head: Mongoose Traveller ( since it reversed mega traveller and the new era) and Runequest (yet to be released - since the Glorantha licence was pulled from Mongoose their version of Runequest becoming legendary or is it legend?). Star Frontiers is available as a tidied up PDF incorporating the later supplementary rules, but no night hawks (star ship rules) rehash yet. There have been several PDFs of the various versions of dragon quest (except the TSR version). Also mongoose has redone and released other GDW/traveller systems that were around originally in the 1980's.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jul 27, 2012 7:05:58 GMT -8
I have never played with the Happy Jacks group (but I sure would like to play at their table). My impression of them is that all these guys (incl. Kimi) are OSR-types. OSR-style could use some definition. And it might surprise people because they are widely played and mostly not "OSR-games." Tappy, huge on crunch, pulled off that Ah-May-ZinG! convention game without player character sheets. He likes the crunch, as he said, but he's also got player trust. That convention game was a triumph of OSR-style. OSR is not an either/or system. It's not that fluffy games are OSR and crunch are not. OSR is system agnostic and that does not get much discussion. It helps define OSR, beyond the "old guys recapturing youthful play using dead games." I don't get it, aren't all OSR systems based on DnD? How can it be system agnostic? Explain please... Is it about capturing the "Old school feel" in a game? I may not have been alive in the 70s but I would bet that, even back then, every table had its own playstyle. Hi Taronicos, You raise very good points, each, which I feel would make a very interesting dialogue on the podcast. There is an answer to this, as much as words can define answers, and I would be interested in broadening or sharpening my own opinions by listening/participating in the dialogue. The name Gary Gygax is synonymous to early D&D and, by marketing the category, also ubiquitous to the hobby. This is where the influence of Gygax can be felt to this day because his influence on D&D did not survive the full extent of AD&D 1e! (As far as actual game system or mechanics, Dave Arneson was more influential to D&D.) For players who lived the years now considered nostalgia, we recall old games that were not as rules independent, like Gygax’s D&D, and games that were far more complicated and full of (unused) charts. So OSR does not track with either a period or a particular game. On what would be his 74th birthday today, the Old School Renaissance movement is about the ideals of play espoused by Gary Gygax. So, is it a play style? Let’s say a manifesto of style of play. That manifesto is published throughout the AD&D 1e DMG. That’s not to say the RPGs cannot be played like a board game with the GM a kind of Monopoly banker role, adjudicating the rules and competing against the other players with a free hand, balanced by published rules. The Banker role in a Monopoly game cannot arbitrarily win simply because he Fiats the bank currency. But when you think about it, the rules “balance” promotes douchey in the same way as it allows the Banker to play a competitive game. The banker becomes the RPGs DM (Douche Master). Saying something akin to, “now we have enshrined rules for balance,” is deleterious to the hobby because it implies a lack of balance can exist in RPGs separate from any GM (douche or not); it promotes the idea of adversarial roles between player and the player DM; and it advances the warning that a GM who does not follow The Rules is a douche. This is the antithesis of Gary Gygax’s game. Gygax verbosely and prolifically states: no rulebook can trump the GM. So if the GM is a douche, do not play with him. And if the player is an asshole, send him packing with blue bolts from heaven. The alternate of OSR advances the notions of the girlfriend who wants to change her boyfriend in the pursuit of creating an inclusive environment, whereas the OSR accepts that there are assholes who are career assholes and it is best not to waste fun time on them. The OSR acknowledges the social dynamic of the game’s form and function over an objective mechanic adjudication. This was obvious in the early days, when the game was so different from competitive rules-bound board games, which is essentially a computer role playing game today. So I very carefully answer your question staying in the light, out of the shadows of nostalgic experiences too often and mistakenly associated with aged nerds wishing to return to a play style that encounters dragons stuck in 10x10 rooms due to prior game inexperience, or total party kills caused by megalomaniac and narcissistic assholes or poor in-game experiences due to unbalanced “light rules.” OSR is a play style about recognizing the collaborative nature of “people who play with people rather than people who play with rules.” It is certainly worth discussion by the Happy Jacks group because they certainly appear to fit the description of OSR above rather than the vilifying stereotype of OSR.
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Post by Stu Venable on Jul 27, 2012 7:20:06 GMT -8
"Legend" is Mongoose's version of Runequest. I would like to put on my self-appointed authority pants for a moment and pontificate. There is a book by Matthew Finch, called A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming. Since I'm wearing my self-appointed authority pants, I will anoint Mr. Finch as the writer of the OSR manifesto. It's a good read and describes Mr. Finch's definition of OSR. Now, OSR means different things to different people, like many coined terms in our hobby (see: Crunch), so this is only one man's opinion. That said, I think the confusion w/ DnD comes from the fact that there is a significant portion of our hobby that believes DnD is the ONLY RPG. Add to this the fact that all editions of DnD are covered by the OGL, making it very easy to republish reorganized versions of them, and it can definitely appear that DnD is the only OSR game. Mr. Finch identifies 4 tenants of OSR (which he mistakenly calls Zen moments -- see: self-appointed authority pants): Rulings not Rules -- rather than having an exhaustive list of rules for edge cases, OSR games leave all of this to GM discretion. Player Skill not Character Ability -- rather than looking to his sheet for the appropriate skill to solve the problem, the OSR player uses his own mind, knowledge, experience and ingenuity to solve the problem. Heroic not Superheroic OSR games have a power level that starts very low. Forget Game Balance OSR games do not worry about intraparty balance. After you read Mr. Finch's book you will realize two things: 1. He blames other games for "ruining" roleplaying. 2. He mistakenly thinks that everything changed around the year 2000. I would also deduce that Mr. Finch didn't play anything BUT DnD until 2000, because if he did, he would know that: - Character skills showed up at least as early as 1977 with Traveller. - Edge case rules showed up in spades in GURPS in 1986, and existed in plenty of games before that. - Superpower games showed at least as early as 1981 with Champions. It is as if he got talked into trying something other than his tired-and-true DnD around 2000 and had an epiphany that "all these people are doing it wrong." All of that aside, his definition of OSR is a useful one, though his vision is a bit myopic. </self-appointed authority pants>
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Post by Deleted on Jul 27, 2012 8:00:11 GMT -8
I see, so it's about the power of GM (and the game table as a whole) over the power of the rules, and it explains the preference on rules-light systems. I always thought that old school gaming was about dungeon crawling, sadistic traps and crunch-light. And since I like my crunch as much as my fluff and my campaigns dungeon-free, the OSR was not my cup of tea. Not that became now that you explained it so well, but I can at least see its appeal.
I wouldn't say that modern rpgs are like computer games though, that would be an unfair generalisation, the only one that tries to be one is D&D 4e. The latest rules of Savage worlds, WoD, L5R , M&M etc. would make for terrible video games, whereas old school AD&D proved to be ideal for computer games time and time again.
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