tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355995296527982141.post7851129330257186654..comments2024-03-21T04:22:06.229-07:00Comments on I Cast <i>Light!</i>: IN THE OSR THERE ARE TWO POLES: OSR-V the Revival (Preservation) vs. OSR-N the Renaissance (Principles)Warren D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05634722785917786420noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355995296527982141.post-38735885402417776452022-01-07T12:05:49.598-08:002022-01-07T12:05:49.598-08:00I see the Storygames vs OSR thing in the OSR Disco...I see the Storygames vs OSR thing in the OSR Discord. I sense a...distinct lack of certain previous voices (from either having left, being drowned out or quietly leaving) and a massive uptick of others more vocal about storygames and 'indie' gaming. <br /><br />Say of this what you will, for those who enjoy those games the OSR is a lovely place, but the OSR will always have blog posts like these for those who want the playstyle.TavernStoephttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08511145010231511519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355995296527982141.post-29254247974912354172022-01-03T13:15:46.528-08:002022-01-03T13:15:46.528-08:00So, thank you for taking the time to write a respo...So, thank you for taking the time to write a response! And yes, you bring up some important points that I should be clearer on and I’ll update the post above.<br /><br />Re: Starting Point<br />Yes, you are correct. I really was thinking more about the here and now and if the four categories would be useful in defining the OSR in 2020+. And I agree that your posts takes a much wider and longer historical view about the OSR in which case it is important to talk about compatibility with D&D as an initiating principle.<br /><br />But I’m not sure that it is self-evident that compatibility is no longer a central and important factor. I feel like there are both supporters and detractors of the OSR who still view it as a central feature. Despite the publication of both the Finch primer and the Principa Apocrypha.<br /><br />I agree the Principa Apocrypha is a good statement for the design principles (especially when combined with ideas around RPG text-as-tool, layout, and graphic design) of the Nu-OSR. But I guess I think “old-school-renaissance”, which predates, “Nu-OSR”, still covers these ideas. My, maybe weak, understanding of “renaissance” here being using older principle to make new things. Which brings me to Call of Cthulhu.<br /><br />RE: Call of Cthulhu<br />When is an old game just that and when is it OSR? Again, I agree with you it is not enough that a game be old to be OSR. I was trying to think of games which are considered OSR but are non-D&D. Call of Cthulhu and MOTHERSHIP jumped to mind first. MOTHERSHIP because it is stated as such. I also think Traveler, Shadowrun, as well as Cyberpunk and TMNT and Other Strangenesses would be there too? But let’s focus on CoC. <br /><br />So, is CoC similar enough to D&D to be considered OSR? And if “yes”, is it a revival? And is that possible with no edition heterogeneity? Or is it a renaissance? <br /><br />I would say that CoC, while not D&D, is similar enough to it because it asks the players to participate in investigation-focused (a type of unknown exploration), combat-lethal adventures where free-rein is given to solve problems. This seems in-line with D&D’s earlier editions and CoC even shares similar Appendix N authors. <br /><br />Can a ruleset with little to no meaningful variation between editions and not been out of print be “revived”? I think CoC has undergone a revival, I think its experienced a more heavily renewed interest due, in part, to older editions of D&D having a re-examination. I think players are turning away from other horror-based story-driven games and want to look at what one of the first entries into this genre has to offer. And this revival is also due, I’m sure, to on-line personalities like Becca Scott demonstrating how enjoyable this “old” game is to play. Even the Kickstarter for the “classic” 1st edition reprint box also pulled in ~$600,000 (I was a backer), which I think demonstrates renewed interest above the “hum” of continued print.<br /><br />But I don’t think CoC has varied their adventure design in the same way the “OSR-N” as done for BX D&D both in terms of philosophy or layout. A lot of CoC adventures, to me, seem to be a more linear reveal dependent on Keepers suppling clues (as sorta “quest-givers) more so than a true “open-world” investigation (great post on this: https://www.failuretolerated.com/a-small-rant-about-investigation-in-rpgs). And the adventure layout still cling to a text dense two-column format that requires the Keeper to make outlines and notes even for the lightest one-shots. Not difficult, but I think incorporating even Old-School Essentials layout would really help!<br /><br />So in summary, yes I agree your four categories were more from a historical context. And, yes, I think the key issues to define and frame the old-school scene today is more about continuing a preserving a playstyle established in the early days of the hobby or improving on the best principle of that playstyle even if it means deviation.<br />Warren D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05634722785917786420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355995296527982141.post-23392025942656585182022-01-03T12:32:09.722-08:002022-01-03T12:32:09.722-08:00Thanks for the post - there's a lot of nostalg...Thanks for the post - there's a lot of nostalgic rhetoric going around about the OSR these days and exactly what it was (or is if one still believes it exists), some of it in service of pretty corrosive and suspect goals. Part of this (not necessarily corrosive though) are the Neo-Revivalist claims around AD&D. <br /><br />I'm baffled by a lot of it, because most of the claims about the OSR don't really square with my experience and most of the claims about AD&D don't follow from the sources or history. While I was far more involved in the G+ Renaissance OSR then the forum and system based Revival OSR, people who were in the earlier forum based wave and who I talk with seem to have different memories as well.<br /><br />I suspect what we are seeing right now is nostalgia for the mid 2000's forum based "OSR" community. That is to say a nostalgic rewriting or idealization of a nostalgic rewriting and idealization of pre-1980's RPGs. As with all nostalgia, it leaves a lot out - e.g. it's worth noting that the CoC v. D&D debate echos one going back to the very start of the hobby - the Cal Tech v. Lake Geneva conflict that boils up in early Strategic Reviews and of course Alarums & Excursions. It's all the same: challenge based (with or without an appreciation of system mastery based meta-knowledge) play styles v. genre emulation based ones.<br /><br />Nostalgia is unavoidable in old games spaces of course, but the problem with nostalgic idealizations is that when they're a rhetorical device they work to create community (good) by obscuring history (unavoidable perhaps but not great when unrecognized) and blaming some group for a rupture with the idealized past they present (potentially quite bad). <br /><br />In the context of the post-OSR space (or whatever we want to call it) this seems to be mostly focused on building a neo-Revivalist community that rejects both the Renaissance (2010's era OSR) and the "POSR" as having poisoned the purity of Gygaxian D&D. Of course the POSR is also largely a nostalgic reinvention of the Renaissance style OSR by younger players and suffers from the reverse. <br /><br />As a larger community rather then growing an appreciation and understanding of older games and innovating on the lessons of both OSR's, it looks like we're at risk of recreating the OSR v. Storygames schism -- for the same reason -- would be influencers using rhetorical nostalgia to attack each other and build a following. Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1355995296527982141.post-56142830882893757092022-01-03T02:46:31.392-08:002022-01-03T02:46:31.392-08:00Hi, and thanks for your thoughtful commentary on m...Hi, and thanks for your thoughtful commentary on my post. Looking at your criteria, I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) it reflects the difference in our starting points. Reading your post, I get the sense you're starting with the now, in which case I think it's self-evident that D&D compatibility isn't really essential to an OSR product, because it simply isn't any longer.<br /><br />For myself, I saw what I was doing as a history, and so I started with the then. From that vantage point, it's impossible to discuss the OSR without D&D; it would be akin to discussing various remakes and apings of the Roman Empire while trying to avoid reference to Rome. That having been said, one of the screenshots in my post had someone refer to "Principia Apocrypha-style gaming", as you do above, and I think that's a decent alternate label for the style of OSR games that is very largely (but still not entirely) detached from D&D, and yet has some of the actual design coherence that I often complained was otherwise lacking in games and related theory that came out of the OSR's fragmentation. This fits in the Nu-OSR, if using my categorization.<br /><br />As for the Call of Cthulhu angle you're taking, I have to admit I don't entirely follow that (I might be being thick here, as it is 3 am). Primarily, I don't get what "non-D&D properties like Call of Cthulhu" specifically refers to. In general, I see a generic focus on older games as too vague to really be a design movement per se; "old RPGs" is pretty nebulous as labels go. The sense of edition iteration that is so much a part of the original OSR is missing in a lot of these revivals, which are often focused on "bring it back" rather than "bring the proper (as we define it) form of it back" (though https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/traveller-out-of-the-box-interlude-differences-in-classic-traveller-rules-sets/ makes for an interesting exception, regarding Traveller). How does one "revive" a game that has never left print, is now more popular than ever, and has hardly changed in terms of rules since it first came out?Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.com