"old school"

>"old school"

Surely this can't be a bunch of grognards clinging to the past, disastrously wallowing in the putrid ooze of discarded, outdated mechanics, remixing the same miserable experiences endlessly while their eyes are clouded with nostalgia?

>it's just a bunch of grognards clinging to the past disastrously wallowing in the putrid ooze of discarded outdated mechanics remixing the same miserable experiences endlessly while their eyes are clouded with nostalgia

Oh goddamnit.

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It's sort of a mix of that and advocates of weird fantasy in D&D desu senpai

Man, the OSR isn't my thing but there's no need to be a dick about it. In my experience the OSR guys are mostly chill, acknowledge that they enjoy a niche playstyle and generally keep to themselves.

Sure, there's the occasional raging asshole who insists everything after D&D 2e is garbage and rampages around other threads being a dick, but there's no merit in assessing everyone who likes them by the bad apples. Every gaming community has its shitheads.

The grognard grain is really fucking deep in that community though.

Basically, they're like old, shambling codgers, who are not bad as long as you don't rile them up, might even be good for a story or two, but the moment you mention something even remotely related to one of the many wars they imagined they've fought in, and watch them start shouting and waving flags and trying to fight anyone who doesn't swear that the queen is more important than their own mum.

So why go poking at them? If they're doing no harm and keeping to themselves, just leave them be.

It takes a very special type of nerd to enjoy old school style games. The parallel would be the kind of people who enjoy traditional Scandinavian fermented delicacies.

Sure, the food is interesting, and it's nice to see people preserving culture, but you need to be a bit of a masochist to enjoy it.

Aye, because the shitheads in that particular group have not been keeping to themselves at all.

Even then, I guess I just don't see any point in shitting on someone else's fun. As long as they're not fucking with me, why should I care what they get up to in their own time? It's occasionally also interesting to dive into a rulebook or two, and see what amounts of a more primitive parallel evolution of role playing games as a whole, an alternate evolutionary pathway from the same root. They can be interesting in how they approach things, and I've adapted ideas from OSR stuff a couple of times, although never particularly directly.

I've not seen many, so if you say so.

Although if that's the case, why go poking them? Learn when to ignore the trolls, report their posts or close their threads, and don't give them more power or ammunition by responding to it by attacking their community and giving them a sense of legitimacy. Trolling only begets trolling.

>t.nu-Veeky Forums faggot who got into DnD 5e after binge-watching Critical Role two months ago

You think their trolling breaks any of the rules? If being a dumb ass on Veeky Forums was something you could report and the mods'd do something about it, there'd be no one here.

So, what we've got is a few aged cunts, withered and full of sand, hopping around to air out their salt. Fine mental image that is.

>Trolling only begets trolling.

Aye. Why let them fire their shots and not sling something back? Tip-toeing around granddad and acting like there's anything to be afraid of is a bad joke. What's the worse they can do? Tell me how bad their games are?

Shitslinging just means you end up with more shit anywhere. Nobody benefits from it, it just perpetuates itself and gets worse and worse. No response is the best response of all.

I'd say it's better to end up with two flavors of shit as opposed to just the stale old kind sprinkled everywhere. Perhaps if the old bags get covered in the crap they'll think twice about dumping their turds out on the lawn.

Or maybe if people stopped reacting to it it'd simmer down to a low, baseline level that's much more tolerable than an active shitstorm. Responses only make it worse. Responding isn't something you to do help, it's something you do because it's cathartic, because you enjoy it or the feeling of righteousness you get when you do it. And fuck, I'm not immune, but I know rationally that it cannot and will never help, it'll just make things worse for everybody, me included.

That's a terrible idea. All that does is make them think that any opposition has left or been made quiet, so that they can run their mouths even louder. If anything, things have been simmering for far too long already, and instead of dying down they've just gotten more bold and plan on getting bolder.

Grognards gonna grog. If they weren't stubborn cunts, they wouldn't be grognards. At least let the more timid grognards get afraid enough to try and get the bold ones back in line.

>waaah stop liking what I don't like

You mean to tell me OSR players are all Minnesotans?

That's not really been my experience with the OSR group.

Sure, there are grognards and people who will debate ascending vs descending AC like it's an article of the credo...

But you've also got groundbreaking designers - often young designers - working on really weird esoteric projects. Some of it crosses firmly in to hipster nonsense but so it goes. Some of them are salty; most are pretty chill. Much more chill and accepting than the 5E threads, less histrionic than the 40k people, and fairly open to system-less and setting-less content.

For every OSR grog who looks at 2E as "abominable new heresy", there's a dozen who have tried and used Fate or other systems and come back to old-school systems for sensible, well-articulated reasons.

So... given that, what exactly is the problem here?

>But you've also got groundbreaking designers

I'm gonna need something more than just that line. Without something to help support that statement, we've just got a group of grognards and hipsters spinning their wheels.

Now, I'm not doubting you. I'm genuinely curious. But, I'm gonna need something more than that to convince myself it's not just people trapping themselves in the past and chaining themselves with nostalgia, real or imagined.

>I'm gonna need something more than just that line.
Sure!

If you want to see the new hotness in the OSR line, check out Patrick Stuart's "Veins of the Earth" book. You can probably track down a PDF without me holding your hand.

It's a big black book of why caves hate you. It contains a bunch of unique and interesting monsters (probably about 50% of which are insufferably ungameable, but the rest are great), plus rules for caving, climbing, treasure, etc.

It's a wonderfully useful and evocative book. And it's theoretically (but not actually) built on an OSR framework. There's never been a game book like it; I can't imagine any modern dynastic game company producing it.

But there's also huge amount of homebrew content and discussion. Check out: goblinpunch.blogspot.ca/2015/07/the-5-types-of-ethical-dilemmas.html
For a typical example of people in the OSR scene really thinking about the nature of games and game design.

There's another secret. Nobody in the OSR scene really gives two shits about the rules. Everyone ends up running a mashed-together homebrew with rules they liked from every system, from 5E to Fiasco. There's never a question of balance or homebrew being ostracized; homebrew is all there is. OC is king in the OSR scene.

Thanks for this. I'm going to reserve passing more judgement for the moment, but honestly, I don't see anything particularly novel from anything you've mentioned, especially because the idea that ignoring the rules is a big part of the OSR scene makes it look like it is actually limiting the group by not encouraging a shared base of mechanics.

The idea that people are generating system-less ideas that then need to be ported over into different systems sounds like there's a critical step missing. Game Ideas with only flimsy mechanical support just don't have that much of an impact.

Still, I'm going to first go through what you've outlined, and see whether or not the OSR is really breaking new ground.

>makes it look like it is actually limiting the group by not encouraging a shared base of mechanics.
The idea is that everything is either
-broadly mechanically compatible
or
-rapidly adaptable
So while I might not be able to use Dungeon A with System B, if they're both OSR, I should be able to adapt them together very easily. It's like Lego. Dungeon A might be underwater lego and Dungeon B might be space lego, but they all bolt together, even if they're octopus bits.

You've got to remember that these systems are fantastically nimble. Most of them have core mechanics that fit on 2 pieces of paper. 1 more for an inventory list and 1/2 a page for each class (if that!) and you're off to the races. There are entire systems shorter than the 5E Dwarf race section.

Lurk the OSR thread or scan the blogs for a bit and see if you come across some cool stuff.

OSR and 4th editoion are the only good versions of DnD though

Edition

Yeah. I normally play Fate, but I’m sort of interested in the OSR world, in part because it’s different from what I’m used to. I don’t see the point in disparaging the OSR guys; they seem pretty cool.

Seconding “Veins of the Earth.” It’s a great book.

"Ignoring" is less the case so much as "play what you want"

For example, Veins of the Earth has various rules for cave exploring (difficulty based on the angle you're trying to traverse by how long you study the route, dealing with hypothermia, how darkness works in a place so black even characters with nightvision can't see, how your character gradually turns into Gollem the longer you stay in the veins).

I can peel off the hypothermia rules if I were running a game about vikings using Labyrinth lord, or the darkness rules for a horror game (seriously, initiative being decided by whoever has sacrificed a free hand in order to hold a torch is brilliant), even if I don't give a damn about running my party through Gonzo Underdark. Or how about Echoes Resounding and it's domain play rules, which are practically a must read for players homebrewing, even if you're playing 5e or Warhammer or whatever. Maybe I want to run Maze of the Blue Medusa in Stars Without Number that I can justify by saying that the holodeck is on the fritz, all the while referencing Maze Rats for NPC creation tables.

OSR as a mindset has become handing you a toolbox to play with, even in their modules, versus a lot of the big publishers which give you a single adventure which treat the players like they're playing a Bioware game, with minimal choices along the way or true exploration.

>the idea that ignoring the rules is a big part of the OSR scene makes it look like it is actually limiting the group by not encouraging a shared base of mechanics.
Moving past what the other user already said about how it's not really "ignoring", I think I see your point.
As a group, it inherently limiting to not encouraging a shared core of mechanics.
But while the group may be limited by this, the individuals enjoy an unlimited level of freedom.
Mom & Pops are never gonna be a national chain, but then, they're not really trying to be.

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