Does the term "OSR" just mean "D&D?

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Just going to go full off topic now. :hehe:

I find it interesting how much France has contributed to metal culture, without actually contributing many well known bands. French cinema in particular, much of which is drawn from French comics.
In some ways metal is so against the popular French image which tends to be kind of stuffy. Obviously the metal side is fed from that underground rebellious streak that started when the masses started making French nobility shorter.

Heavy Metal Magazine had its origin in the French magazine Metal Hurlant (Howling Metal which itself would be a great name for a metal band) in 1974, and that inspired the creation of Heavy Metal Magazine in America in 1977, followed by the Heavy Metal Movie in 1981, both featuring a large number of European artists.

Trust is the only French Metal band I am familiar with and that mostly due to their inclusion on the HM sound track, but films like The Fifth Element could have come from the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine (or perhaps did).
 
That was also my link, but mine was less elegantly placed :smile:
I also read the same article.

What I find amazing is how.much the gay scene contributed to the metal look. All that leather, all those studs. Rob Halford freely admits to dressing like a leather daddy.

I mean, just look at this -

1619976286919.png
 
I also read the same article.

What I find amazing is how.much the gay scene contributed to the metal look. All that leather, all those studs. Rob Halford freely admits to dressing like a leather daddy.

I mean, just look at this -

View attachment 30387
Rob Halford is gay which would have given him advance access to the scene.

The studs go well with leather (which had long been part of the rocker scene) and are of course, literally, metal.

Twisted Sister were big in the 80's, and there was a fair amount of glam rock/metal crossover (Kiss, Sweet, Motley Crue etc.).

I am not saying that your average metal head was especially right on or woke but the fact that it was a marginalized musical style, and also reveled in 'sticking it to the man' probably made it attractive to people who felt marginalized themselves. The standard haircut, or lack of one, also supported blurring gender identities.

Certainly I went to a lot of metal concerts in the 80's and 90's and saw no violence at any of them (outside the accepted buffeting in the mosh pit).
 
Certainly I went to a lot of metal concerts in the 80's and 90's and saw no violence at any of them (outside the accepted buffeting in the mosh pit).
I didn't go to nearly as many as I'd have wanted to, and I did see some scenes that were only fun to watch from a distance:shade:.
 
The thing about genres and classifications is that they are more useful for the final product's consumer than its producer. Granted, there's the whole "limitations spur creativity" aspect, which I wouldn't argue against, but during the creation process you get a far better result not worrying overmuch about what niche it's going to fit into. That's really the job of the marketer trying to figure out who to sell it to, and the consumer looking for things that alighn with their already-developed taste.

Now, am I talking about music or RPGs? :wink:

Both, of course, which is why I come down on the side of "yes, OSR means early D&D, however exactly you define that". Fact is, outside of discussions like this one, 99% of the time I see people actually using the term that's what they mean, and as far as I can tell people who play other early games just talk about those games by name and don't try to connect them with any broader movement.
 
I also read the same article.

What I find amazing is how.much the gay scene contributed to the metal look. All that leather, all those studs. Rob Halford freely admits to dressing like a leather daddy.

I mean, just look at this -

View attachment 30387

I've seen an interview with Judas Priest and the band really had no clue they were adopting a leather look from the gay community. They knew Rob Halford was gay, but to them the leather and studs were just cool, it wasn't until much later that they knew where it came from.
Having grown up in the 80s I can believe this, as there was a lot of naivety and willful ignorance about it. Rumors that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury were gay were violently denied by fans (at least in the US, it may have been more open elsewhere).

I love this clip from youtube, looking at it from 2021 kind of like no shit, but who cares it is awesome. In the 1980s we were clueless.

 
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I think the games of DwD Studios (BareBones Fantasy, FrontierSpace, Covert Ops, and Art of Wuxia) and our own Brendan Davis (Terror Network, Sertorius, Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, etc.) fit the bill, save for random or semi-random character generation. Maybe Fragged Empire and its sister games, too; I'm not that familiar with those.
The Fragged series draws much more from D&D 3/4 (Gridded tactical skirmish combat, character building subgame, heavy abstraction and assumption-based design) than older editions. I think if you went into them looking for something OSR-y then you would be disappointed.

I've seen an interview with Judas Priest and the band really had no clue they were adopting a leather look from the gay community. They knew Rob Halford was gay, but to them the leather and studs were just cool, it wasn't until much later that they knew where it came from.
Having grown up in the 80s I can believe this, as there was a lot of naivety and willful ignorance about it. Rumors that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury were gay were violently denied by fans (at least in the US, it may have been more open elsewhere).
Well, Freddie Mercury wasn't gay. He was bisexual.
 
Rob Halford is gay which would have given him advance access to the scene.

The studs go well with leather (which had long been part of the rocker scene) and are of course, literally, metal.

Twisted Sister were big in the 80's, and there was a fair amount of glam rock/metal crossover (Kiss, Sweet, Motley Crue etc.).

I am not saying that your average metal head was especially right on or woke but the fact that it was a marginalized musical style, and also reveled in 'sticking it to the man' probably made it attractive to people who felt marginalized themselves. The standard haircut, or lack of one, also supported blurring gender identities.

Certainly I went to a lot of metal concerts in the 80's and 90's and saw no violence at any of them (outside the accepted buffeting in the mosh pit).
Kiss and Sweet were from the 70s. And Sweet were British. Part of the same movement that gave us David Bowie, T Rex, Slade and Wizzard.

I vividly remember buying Screaming for Vengeance from Woolworths one high school lunchtime. The pic I posted earlier was the inner sleeve image, with the lyrics on the other side. I said , "That guy looks like he came right out of the Village People!" And my friend, who recommended the record, said, "He's the Metal God! He's no way gay!"
 
I've seen an interview with Judas Priest and the band really had no clue they were adopting a leather look from the gay community. They knew Rob Halford was gay, but to them the leather and studs were just cool, it wasn't until much later that they knew where it came from.
Having grown up in the 80s I can believe this, as there was a lot of naivety and willful ignorance about it. Rumors that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury were gay were violently denied by fans (at least in the US, it may have been more open elsewhere).

I love this clip from youtube, looking at it from 2021 kind of like no shit, but who cares it is awesome. In the 1980s we were clueless.


Well, having grown in some very different 80ies and 90ies, we knew about Freddie Mercury. We didn't have any idea about Halford, or about any possible connection to the gay scene:grin:!
 
I don't know. There are definitely some rock people who behave that way, but Jazz players can also be insufferable as well. I think most rock musicians tend to respect the lineage and the roots. If you see interviews with guys from the Stones, Iommi, with Lemmy, with Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc, you see them talking about where the stuff comes from (Lemmy was constantly pointing to Little Richard for example as a major influence). Tony Iommi talks about stuff like the Shadows but also how he was inspired by Django Reinhardt. Usually my experience with guitarists is they like to go back to get to the roots of what it is they are playing. When I took guitar lessons, that was drilled into my head (if my teacher heard something in metal that sounded like Bach, he made me learn stuff like Air). You are going to have the prima donna's like Axl Rose, but even he acknowledges how much a band like ACDC influenced him. Just about everyone starts out trying to sound like other people.

Sure but I'm speaking from experience from interviewing lesser known rock and jazz musicians, most of the rock musicians I was dealing with are not established legends like Richards or Lemmy so I get why those trying to establish themselves would be resistant to being constantly compared to contemporaries, not past masters.

But in general I'm talking of the more asshole-ish end of the spectrum for sure, which honestly as the great Danny Fields noted makes up a significant contingent of the genus.

I remember well discovering Django from Iommi's interviews in Guitar Player, and Page Hamilton of Helmet naming Cecil Taylor as an influence on his use of clusters in his guitar playing. But trust me the average jazz musician was far more articulate than the average rock musician.

Punk also made it cool for a while, particularly in the UK, to pretend that you weren't even playing RnR (I remember well an interview where Thom Yorke insisted on this, among others), as absurd a claim as that is. In general American punk rockers were less under the influence of such Year Zero thinking.
 
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William Burroughs had a character call the Heavy Metal Kid in something like 1963. I heard he was he source of the term. And allegedly, it was used in Rolling Stone to describe describe sound Led Zeppelin on their first visit to the US.

It's a vague thing, the history of the term heavy metal.

I've also seen the use of the term 'heavy' in contemporaneous rock sources to describe Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, Led Zep and BS were all labelled as heavy if not heavy metal bands as the terminolgy developed.
 
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I've seen an interview with Judas Priest and the band really had no clue they were adopting a leather look from the gay community. They knew Rob Halford was gay, but to them the leather and studs were just cool, it wasn't until much later that they knew where it came from.
Having grown up in the 80s I can believe this, as there was a lot of naivety and willful ignorance about it. Rumors that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury were gay were violently denied by fans (at least in the US, it may have been more open elsewhere).

I love this clip from youtube, looking at it from 2021 kind of like no shit, but who cares it is awesome. In the 1980s we were clueless.



I find it hilarious how long it took the metal fans to catch on to Rob and Freddy. The leather scene in San Fran was infamous and once Cruising came out 80' I don't think one could claim it was some underground thing. I watched Crusing as a kid on afternoon TV in the 80s!

I think it was the unacknowledged glam influence and general genderfuckery in RnR, going right back to the Stones, Bowie and T Rex that threw so many people off. They were used to rock musicians looking like wild, alien, andronyous or magical beings so the obvious coding passed over a lot of their heads.
 
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I've seen an interview with Judas Priest and the band really had no clue they were adopting a leather look from the gay community. They knew Rob Halford was gay, but to them the leather and studs were just cool, it wasn't until much later that they knew where it came from.
Having grown up in the 80s I can believe this, as there was a lot of naivety and willful ignorance about it. Rumors that Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury were gay were violently denied by fans (at least in the US, it may have been more open elsewhere).

I love this clip from youtube, looking at it from 2021 kind of like no shit, but who cares it is awesome. In the 1980s we were clueless.


Cool video :smile:

There might have been a clue in the song Hellbent for Leather as well.

I really enjoyed how OTT Judas Priest were, tongue seemed firmly in cheek to me. Great riffs - their cover of Green Manalishi is one of my favourite metal songs.
 
Well, Freddie Mercury wasn't gay. He was bisexual.

That was a division unknown to many in the rather binary 80s.

Well, having grown in some very different 80ies and 90ies, we knew about Freddie Mercury. We didn't have any idea about Halford, or about any possible connection to the gay scene:grin:!

Early 80s it was mostly rumors, by the late 80s it was pretty well accepted with Freddie Mercury. I don't think it was common knowledge about Rob Halford until the mid to late 90s. Within my lifetime LGBT has gone from something almost mythical, you just kind of know it exists but unless you specifically went looking it really wasn't out there. Even growing up across the bay from SF most people didn't know anybody who was openly gay. There might be that "not a couple" pair of women living together, or that perpetually single guy who never dated, but it wasn't really talked about, not even kids with their stupid innuendos. These days it is just a thing, kind of unusual not to at least casually know somebody who identifies as LGBT.
 
Tom Waits, Tori Amos, and Cyndi Lauper are my top 3 - ones I own tons of albums, including rare and foreign singles and studio cuts.

Most other musicians I like maybe 1 to half a dozen songs of theirs.
I just like songs more than artists. I listen to a wide variety of sounds and for the most part, I delve deeper into those that continually show up on my listen list. If I compiled those artists, I'd hazard to guess they'd span many genres.
 
On using analogies to music to understand the problems in defining OSR: I see the point about Heavy Metal, or jazz, but it seems to me it is missing an element you find in OSR. Those musical genres are largely about creating new songs, not about an attempt to recapture or riff on an older style of music. So it makes sense to me at least that they are not that concerned with boundaries of genre.

In contrast, think about the Early Music scene, where the point is to recapture music as it was once played centuries ago. There (in my limited experience) you can find a good deal of worry and infighting about what counts as authentic Early Music and what does not. In other words, genre boundaries matter.

Now, the analogy is inexact, because Early Music is not about new compositions, and the OSR is about new games. Maybe a closer analogy would be folk music? It's open to new songs as well as old ones, but there can be considerable policing of what counts as folk and what does not, and people can become rather excited about the issue (e.g. Pete Seeger vs. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival).
 
On using analogies to music to understand the problems in defining OSR: I see the point about Heavy Metal, or jazz, but it seems to me it is missing an element you find in OSR. Those musical genres are largely about creating new songs, not about an attempt to recapture or riff on an older style of music. So it makes sense to me at least that they are not that concerned with boundaries of genre.

In contrast, think about the Early Music scene, where the point is to recapture music as it was once played centuries ago. There (in my limited experience) you can find a good deal of worry and infighting about what counts as authentic Early Music and what does not. In other words, genre boundaries matter.

Now, the analogy is inexact, because Early Music is not about new compositions, and the OSR is about new games. Maybe a closer analogy would be folk music? It's open to new songs as well as old ones, but there can be considerable policing of what counts as folk and what does not, and people can become rather excited about the issue (e.g. Pete Seeger vs. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival).
Jazz has the standards. Which I think get reflected perfectly in the OSR.

It's a set of songs, ok, quite an extensive list really, but I think the analogy holds up. This is the basis of the repertoire of a jazz musician. Just as there are certain things that need to be in the repertoire of the OSR designer. Admittedly, specific editions of D&D, particular settings and various other bits of esoterica the OSR writer needs to know about might be a smaller list.

But it's there.
 
On using analogies to music to understand the problems in defining OSR: I see the point about Heavy Metal, or jazz, but it seems to me it is missing an element you find in OSR. Those musical genres are largely about creating new songs, not about an attempt to recapture or riff on an older style of music. So it makes sense to me at least that they are not that concerned with boundaries of genre.

In contrast, think about the Early Music scene, where the point is to recapture music as it was once played centuries ago. There (in my limited experience) you can find a good deal of worry and infighting about what counts as authentic Early Music and what does not. In other words, genre boundaries matter.

Now, the analogy is inexact, because Early Music is not about new compositions, and the OSR is about new games. Maybe a closer analogy would be folk music? It's open to new songs as well as old ones, but there can be considerable policing of what counts as folk and what does not, and people can become rather excited about the issue (e.g. Pete Seeger vs. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival).

We've probably beaten the music analogy into the ground but if the OSR scene are the types who booed Dylan...lol
 
Both, of course, which is why I come down on the side of "yes, OSR means early D&D, however exactly you define that". Fact is, outside of discussions like this one, 99% of the time I see people actually using the term that's what they mean, and as far as I can tell people who play other early games just talk about those games by name and don't try to connect them with any broader movement.

One thing I think is important in these discussions is to try to honestly reflect how a term is used, rather than try to broaden it or narrow it in order to fit what we want it to be. I have to say, I think you are largely right here. 99% of times I encounter it, it is early D&D (including retro clones) and other definitions would be secondary to that one (I could be wrong, since I am just going by what I see and hear, but definitely this is the majority of what I see and here. I might say OSR refers to:

Early D&D and retro clones of early D&D; also a philosophy and style; and sometimes other systems done in the spirit of early RPGs.
 
Early D&D and retro clones of early D&D; also a philosophy and style; and sometimes other systems done in the spirit of early RPGs.
My recommendation is to go with OSR = Those who promote, publish, or play the classic editions of D&D and similar games along with other things that interest members of this group.

It reflects the situation with many of those who I have talked too over the years. There is a connection with one of the classic editions or close clones, they continue to have other interest while doing their classic edition things. And if interested will use the same techniques of promotion or publishing for those other things as they see being used for the classic editions.

How does anything remained grounded? Well because it anchored around a handful of specific out print editions of D&D that doesn't change. I know that "other things" is maddeningly vague. But that how it is. Everybody marches to the tune of their own drummer including myself especially when it comes to those "other things".

If you look at the Traveller Community for the most part it anchored around the Third Imperium setting. It only in the past decade that original Traveller settings has gained much traction as far as sharing, promotion, or publishing thanks to Cepheus. But since both editions of Mongoose Traveller and Cepheus are recognizable variants of Classic Traveller/Mega Traveller. Now Traveller hobby like the OSR is now grounded in part in a set of rules.

How Runequest has a similar twin foundation in Glorantha and the BRP/D100 family of rules. Although how it got there was very different as Chaosium more or less kept chugging along despite the loss of Glorantha for a long time. But when Mongoose made a d100 system for Glorantha that started the path where that hobby is today with its own twists and turns.
 
My recommendation is to go with OSR = Those who promote, publish, or play the classic editions of D&D and similar games along with other things that interest members of this group.

It reflects the situation with many of those who I have talked too over the years. There is a connection with one of the classic editions or close clones, they continue to have other interest while doing their classic edition things. And if interested will use the same techniques of promotion or publishing for those other things as they see being used for the classic editions.
[ . . . ]

As a definition, basing the term around D&D is also more useful as you can infer some degree of interchangeability of material between 'OSR' systems. If you can buy a module for one OSR system with some expectation that it will port to other such systems easily, then the brand holds some material value to punters on the street or shopping on DTRPG. If you start labelling Cepheus or D100 systems as OSR then you lose the compatibility aspect and the brand becomes less meaningful to people wanting to use the material.

I'm less fussed over the philosophical aspects of the OSR as it's just another style of campaign to me. Having said that, I started with Traveller and didn't play D&D all that much (I've never played any edition of OD&D) so I have no nostalgic attachment to it. I sort of characterise myself as being irrationally indifferent to the OSR - I'd happily play in a game of (say) Dungeon Crawl Classics (or Majestic Fantasy for that matter) but I don't feel particularly attached to it.

However, if I was to run a game using some OSR system then a meaningful 'OSR' brand would make a web search for 'OSR' content more useful.
 
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As a definition, basing the term around D&D is also more useful as you can infer some degree of interchangeability of material between 'OSR' systems. If you can buy a module for one OSR system with some expectation that it will port to other such systems easily, then the brand holds some material value to punters on the street or shopping on DTRPG. If you start labelling Cepheus or D100 systems as OSR then you lose the compatibility aspect and the brand becomes less meaningful to people wanting to use the material.

I'm less fussed over the philosophical aspects of the OSR as it's just another style of campaign to me. Having said that, I started with Traveller and didn't play D&D all that much (I've never played any edition of OD&D) so I have no nostalgic attachment to it. I sort of characterise myself as being irrationally indifferent to the OSR - I'd happily play in a game of (say) Dungeon Crawl Classics (or Majestic Fantasy for that matter) but I don't feel particularly attached to it.
That's treating the idea as a brand, rather than an actual renaissance in old school games and gaming styles. Me, I'm at the point where I wish the whole thing would go away. OSR as a loose grouping that gave us GORE and Swords & Wizardry is good. OSR (tm) is just another marketing tool.
 
That's treating the idea as a brand, rather than an actual renaissance in old school games and gaming styles. Me, I'm at the point where I wish the whole thing would go away. OSR as a loose grouping that gave us GORE and Swords & Wizardry is good. OSR (tm) is just another marketing tool.
I feel the renaissance is interesting in that it's generated a fair amount of decent content, but there's a lot of hype about it that I don't really feel - it feels about as substantial to me as the 2014 vintage hype about FATE. As a philosophy it's just another style of game play rather than some sort of defining experience and as a potential consumer it's not much use as a descriptor unless I can infer something about the usability or compatibility of the material from it.

I feel like I'm looking into the OSR as an outsider. It doesn't mean a lot to me and I'm not part of it. That doesn't mean that it's without merit, but from the point of view of a dispassionate outsider, it's a movement that's producing some good material (although Sturgeon's law, as always, still applies) but it's more useful as a meaningful label than as some sort of Weltanschauung.

TL;DR: I'm not a participant in the OSR; the term is mainly useful to me as a descriptor.
 
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That's treating the idea as a brand, rather than an actual renaissance in old school games and gaming styles. Me, I'm at the point where I wish the whole thing would go away. OSR as a loose grouping that gave us GORE and Swords & Wizardry is good. OSR (tm) is just another marketing tool.
And yet surprisingly there is not a lot of folks who stamps OSR on their products is there? Including myself. The reality is that when it comes up, it either in a blog post, podcast, etc as shorthand description for the group of hobbyists who plays, promotes, and publishes for classic editions of D&D among other things. Or it is found as a category on a storefront like on Lulu back in the day, or on DriveThruRPG currently.

And the range of products made by those who use these categories is large even within the more specific subcategories. And the links to DriveThruRPG doesn't even begin to cover some of the other stuff out there particularly zines.

So exactly what is the issue with OSR here? What makes it so bad that it ought to go away? The way I see it, the circumstances are about ideal as one could get. If anybody has an idea, commercial or not, the barriers of entry are low, the major resource needed is time, if all what one wants to do is play it is easier than ever to find hobbyist with similar interest.

Or it all just a grey gooey mess of chattering idiots like some others have said?
 
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That's treating the idea as a brand, rather than an actual renaissance in old school games and gaming styles. Me, I'm at the point where I wish the whole thing would go away. OSR as a loose grouping that gave us GORE and Swords & Wizardry is good. OSR (tm) is just another marketing tool.
I wouldn't call it a brand as no one controls it (it isn't a label that one company controls, and it is also something that doesn't have to be a product, it can be blog entries, or just stuff for your personal campaign). It is just a category. But it is helpful for people buying and people making RPGS for sure. If you set out to a make an OSR X, and you are using that more narrow definition of fitting that something to an old system of D&D and to the conceits of D&D, those can be interesting parameters to work within. And on the player and GM end, it helps people who want a game that is compatible with older versions of D&D (but they also know generally what to expect in terms of gaming philosophy). So I think creatively, it is interesting. That doesn't mean you can't have different waves of OSR, or other broader usages of the term. But for a long time now, this has been probably the most common meaning I've encountered. I don't think it is doing harm to the hobby though. A lot of people like old versions of D&D, they like the OSR approach, so having that label helps them.

My feeling on this stuff is something like this existing shouldn't bother people. People don't have to like it. There are lots of games and gaming trends I don't like. But I don't need them to go away
 
I wouldn't call it a brand as no one controls it (it isn't a label that one company controls, and it is also something that doesn't have to be a product, it can be blog entries, or just stuff for your personal campaign). It is just a category. But it is helpful for people buying and people making RPGS for sure. If you set out to a make an OSR X, and you are using that more narrow definition of fitting that something to an old system of D&D and to the conceits of D&D, those can be interesting parameters to work within. And on the player and GM end, it helps people who want a game that is compatible with older versions of D&D (but they also know generally what to expect in terms of gaming philosophy). So I think creatively, it is interesting. That doesn't mean you can't have different waves of OSR, or other broader usages of the term. But for a long time now, this has been probably the most common meaning I've encountered. I don't think it is doing harm to the hobby though. A lot of people like old versions of D&D, they like the OSR approach, so having that label helps them.

My feeling on this stuff is something like this existing shouldn't bother people. People don't have to like it. There are lots of games and gaming trends I don't like. But I don't need them to go away

I keep all my "D&D" game PDFs in a file labeled OSR whether or not they actually identify as OSR...
 
I keep all my "D&D" game PDFs in a file labeled OSR whether or not they actually identify as OSR...
296.jpg
 
My feeling on this stuff is something like this existing shouldn't bother people. People don't have to like it. There are lots of games and gaming trends I don't like. But I don't need them to go away
By "go away," I mean, like GNS, it's become this thing that nobody can really agree on. The sooner it goes out of fashion, the better if you ask me.
 
By "go away," I mean, like GNS, it's become this thing that nobody can really agree on. The sooner it goes out of fashion, the better if you ask me.
That thesis only holds water if like the GNS the OSR represents just a theory of game design.

There are several competing definitions of OSR.

One that ties it to a specific series of systems known as classic D&D. What that the only way it goes out of fashion if people stop playing, promoting, or publishing for one of the classic editions.

Another does consider OSR a theory of game design. So while that could go out of fashion, the problem is that the classic edition will remain. The process of using open content to support those classic edition will remain. And knowledge of how people used those classic edition back in the day will remain. And future hobbyists will be as curious as the one now. So the idea of "old school" design and play will remain.

So exactly how you envision all of this going out of fashion?
 
By "go away," I mean, like GNS, it's become this thing that nobody can really agree on. The sooner it goes out of fashion, the better if you ask me.
Sure. Before the OSR, gamers had nothing to argue about, and once the OSR goes away, arguments between gamers will stop again.

I have to ask, as someone who is tired of arguments about the definition of the OSR, why are you so active in this thread?
 
Sure. Before the OSR, gamers had nothing to argue about, and once the OSR goes away, arguments between gamers will stop again.

I have to ask, as someone who is tired of arguments about the definition of the OSR, why are you so active in this thread?
Because people keep responding to me with points or questions I feel I need to respond to.

Much like everyone else, I guess.
 
I have a very broad musical range, so don't really care too much about genres anymore. Trying to make genre playlists is hard because there is metal and hard rock that go well together, and metal to metal that don't.

+2 on the Bon Scott over Brian Johnson, but only because those early AC/DC albums are so good. Back in Black, For those about to Rock and Thunderstruck are still great AC/DC albums.

On the Pop-rock front, the term Pop to me usually implies high production values (perhaps even over produced), a slick, glossy presentation, the Beatles maybe, but The Who, Rolling Stones, Kinks etc tend to have a grittier edge, almost grunge way before Nirvana was even a thing. It is unfortunate that "pop music" has become a derogatory term, but that mostly comes from the music industry pushing photogenic acts over talent.

<In jest>
TLDR: The Village Green Preservation Society was the precursor to Nevermind.
</In jest>
 
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