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Voros

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Zak has posted a ‘questionaire’ about the OSR that refreshingly has revived some of the old blog back-and-forth we use to see more of just as G+ rides into the sunset.

First, I appreciate the Maimonides call-out in the title and it reminds me that I’d still like to see a fantasy RPG drawing on Jewish sources for the flavour, magic and setting.

But anyways, to keep on topic here is my response. Post yours as well.

OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

I could probably fill this whole list with posts from the Last Gasp Grimoire blog but I’ll try to keep it spread out.

One that is sticking with my is this recent post from Last Gasp Grimoire: https://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/death-dismemberment/

Less because of the proposed rules and criticals tables, although those are interesting and funny but more the intro and end text where I feel he challenges some OSR and LotFP-play orthodoxy and identifies clear goals in play: SPEED and FUN.

2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:

This List of 20 Questions from Necropraxis: http://www.necropraxis.com/2012/02/24/20-quick-questions-rules/

3. Best OSR module/supplement:

Despite the flawed layout I have to go with the controversial but tremendously imaginative and strange Deep Carbon Observatory: https://www.rpgnow.com/m/product/131801

I will then cheat and list as my favourite supplement as distinct from module as Hydra Cooperatives’ Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, it combines my love of city supplements and the truly strange: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/151165

4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

House rules are my least favourite part of the OSR, most often I find them fiddly and unneeded. And often they are addressing age-old ‘problems’ with D&D that RQ, Pendragon and TT addressed decades ago.

BUT I absolutely love Gavin Norman’s B/X Rogue which does fix the heavily flawed skill system for the class in Classic D&D http://www.rpgnow.com/m/product/166517

5. How I found out about the OSR:

I think I first came across Grognardia, was intrigued at first but then his OSR chauvinism and rabid acolytes in the comments and forums eventually turned me off.

But then I found other more open-minded and creative blogs like LastGasp, Save vs. TPK, Dungeon of Signs and the releases from LotFP, Hydra Cooperative, Necrotic Gnome, Red Box Vancouver, Michael Prescott and
Patrick Stuart’s work that really hooked me in. Less grognard bitterness and ‘commentary,’ more imagination and gameable content, that is where the ‘real’ OSR is happening.

6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

Michael Prescott’s amazing series of one to two page adventure locations/maps:
http://blog.trilemma.com/search/label/adventure?m=1

7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

RPG Pub of course. Way less snobbish BS and groupthink, more good humour.

8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

Use to be G+ not sure I plan on moving anywhere else. I follow designers on Twitter but don’t really ‘talk games’ there.

9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

My comparison of the OSR to punk rock. It is an attempt to go back to the ‘source’ of a form that had become too complex for its own good, figure out what was best about it back then and bring those virtues into the present.

It was soon (perhaps always) afflicted by purism, orthodoxy and chauvinism. It started to become more about tribal identity instead of music/gaming. A huge gap opened up between the ‘fans’ and the musicians/designers who usually had little interest in the defintions and tribalism of their audience.

As identified by John Savage in his great history of British punk rock England’s Dreaming, two camps developed, one vital but anti-intellectual, orthodox and eventually stuck in nostalgic sterility, the other overtly arty, intellectual and transgressive but also possibly pretentious and sometimes lacking in that all-essential vitality. Like Savage I ultimately have to side with the arty types as history imo has proven that whatever their shortcomings they are the ones who actually produce and keep the form alive.

Okay not too pithy. But the ‘OSR is like punk rock’ doesn’t quite cover it for me.

10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

CoC

11. Why I like OSR stuff:

I like D&D, OSR at its best is a faster, simpler form of D&D.

12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

Wormskin by Necrotic Gnome
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/231189/Everything-Dolmenwood-PDF-BUNDLE

Hot Springs Island by Jacob Hurst: http://shop.swordfishislands.com/

13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

https://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/

All Killer. No Filler.

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

Derp. I don’t share my stuff online. May one day.

15. I'm currently running/playing:

A Traveller PbP game with Dumarest Dumarest GMing

A B/X D&D game with Stan Stan DMing

A game of Dead Friend with my wife

16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

It is easy to convert. Prefer AAC though, sorry kids.

17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:

4369E4CC-736D-4176-80E1-3EE2E8FB66D7.jpeg
 
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Despite the flawed layout I have to go with the controversial but tremendously imaginative and strange Deep Carbon Observatory: https://www.rpgnow.com/m/product/131801
What's controversial about Deep Carbon Observatory? Seems like a typical (very good) OSR module.

Couldn't agree more with wanting to see more Jewish themed material.

Also it just struck me, did you used to have the
giant
from Deep Carbon observatory as an avatar on rpgsite?

If so I bought Deep Carbon Observatory and Cthulhu Confidential because of you.
 
What's controversial about Deep Carbon Observatory? Seems like a typical (very good) OSR module.

Couldn't agree more with wanting to see more Jewish themed material.

Also it just struck me, did you used to have the
giant
from Deep Carbon observatory as an avatar on rpgsite?

If so I bought Deep Carbon Observatory and Cthulhu Confidential because of you.

Yes that was me! Great to hear it.

I think DCO is seen as the vanguard release of the arty ‘millenial’ upstarts by the more reactionary wing of the OSR. I recall someone saying I must be a hipster since I used that DCO avatar. It was all part of the tribalism I spoke of in my OSR as punk rock metaphor.
 
Yes that was me! Great to hear it.

I think DCO is seen as the vanguard release of the arty ‘millenial’ upstarts by the more reactionary wing of the OSR. I recall someone saying I must be a hipster since I used that DCO avatar. It was all part of the tribalism I spoke of in my OSR as punk rock metaphor.
Some of the groggiest of the nards regard it as artsy bullshit. It is artsy as hell, but not bullshit.
 
1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

LINK

2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:


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3. Best OSR module/supplement:

41yRVrnlNWL._BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

darkdung04.jpg


5. How I found out about the OSR:

203877.jpg


6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

WardukePosed1a.jpg


7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

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8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

myron_reducto_by_mikepetrucci.jpg


9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

cc-osr-cs_1.jpg


10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

show-pic.phtml


11. Why I like OSR stuff:

tumblr_nilxrf8ycU1qexeroo1_250.gif


12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

2w7h6cy.jpg


13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

Grognardia!

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

39796486284_6c2aac70fd_b.jpg


15. I'm currently running/playing:

39796486284_6c2aac70fd_b.jpg


16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

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17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:

4vhF7cLLmu4zC.gif
 
I have heard this quite a few times but literally never ever seen a single quote from James that was less than 100% deferential and like "this is just my taste".
The man's been a pariah since he fucked up his KS. I've seen him accused of a lot of other stuff that I never saw evidence of. It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but his withdrawal from the hobby always seemed like a shame to me.
 
The man's been a pariah since he fucked up his KS. I've seen him accused of a lot of other stuff that I never saw evidence of. It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but his withdrawal from the hobby always seemed like a shame to me.

Yeah, it's a real shame how everything turned out, the hobby lost something when Grognardia died
 
I have heard this quite a few times but literally never ever seen a single quote from James that was less than 100% deferential and like "this is just my taste".

Is this based on anything Mal ever said? What thing?

Framing D&D in terms of a supposedly purer 'Golden Age' with a narrative that 2e , etc was a 'Silver/Bronze' 'kiddification of D&D' (convienently ignoring Planescape, Dark Sun) and DL 'ruined everything' is textbook nostalgic reactionary not to mention falsely revisionist. He was also often absurdly uncritical of early D&D once proclaiming:

"For me, it's easy: "D&D is always right," by which I mean that the ideas and concepts we got in OD&D, whatever their origins, must be the standard by which we judge everything else.

Enough things weren't added to OD&D that I can only conclude that, if they were there, they were there because Gygax and Arneson both signed off on them and deemed them a good fit for the game they'd created."

Which besides being a stifling and arbitrary authority-based standard, completely overlooks the actual way D&D was designed, which was far more ad hoc and with disagreements between Gygax and Arneson about implementation, plus outright apparent errors.

Now I think JMal was often being polemical and extemporaneous in what he viewed as an uphill argument with 'the Man' of 2e and WotC D&D at the time and like many intelligent polemicists would approach things in a more nuanced way in rational discussion.

But like Lydon's 'Pink Floyd Sucks' the rebellion soon became the new orthodoxy as the internerd doesn't understand nuance and many read JMal's polemics as the literal truth.
 
The man's been a pariah since he fucked up his KS. I've seen him accused of a lot of other stuff that I never saw evidence of. It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but his withdrawal from the hobby always seemed like a shame to me.

He posts pretty regularly on G+ and still active in the Toronto OSR and RPG scene.

He has always struck me as friendly and reasonable, but as I said above I think the polemical tone of some of his columns encouraged some of the worse tendencies of others.
 
Framing...often being polemical .....etc
None of that's a quote. Only a quote will do.
"For me, it's easy: "D&D is always right," by which I mean that the ideas and concepts we got in OD&D, whatever their origins, must be the standard by which we judge everything else.

Enough things weren't added to OD&D that I can only conclude that, if they were there, they were there because Gygax and Arneson both signed off on them and deemed them a good fit for the game they'd created."


The words "for me" immediately frame that as an expression of personal taste and therefore they can't be " OSR chauvinism ".

If I go "For me, pizza is the best" this isn't Italian Cuisine Snobbery.
 
None of that's a quote. Only a quote will do.


The words "for me" immediately frame that as an expression of personal taste and therefore they can't be " OSR chauvinism ".

If I go "For me, pizza is the best" this isn't Italian Cuisine Snobbery.

I linked directly to the DL column I was referring to. His use of 'Golden Age' is ubiquitous [and linked]. The entire presentation frame of Golden/Silver/Bronze/Dark Ages is usually reactionary, often ahistorical and always simplistic.

I think it is reasonable to claim a piece that declares DL 'ruined everything,' 'changed all that,' 'exerted a baleful influence' and 'commits even greater crimes' is polemical.

Like any skilled and persuasive polemicist he sprinkles his arguments with mild qualifiers like the aforementioned 'for me' and even acknowledges he is speaking in hyperbole but that doesn't make it any less polemical. After all, if he knows it is hyperbole, why say it? Because it is rhetorically effective for his polemical aims.

What one soon sees across forums is Grognardia's narrative repeated as the gospel truth, minus any of his qualifiers.
 
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It's worth considering the context. The primary subject of the column is James taking Gygax to task for his explanation as too why AD&D was superior to OD&D. Maliszewski suggests that Gygax was being disingenuous as he was promoting AD&D mainly because he thought it had better commercial prospects. The post goes on to portray this as the beginning of the decline that led to 4e, which was current at the time.

I don't know if I actually agree with all of this argument. Mainly, I don't see a big connection to AD&D and the decline of D&D - I think it had more to do with mismanagement. It's probably easier to see things this way in the 5e era, when things are not nearly so grim for old-schoolers.

That being said, it's worth pointing out how he closed the post that you quote:
In the end, though, OD&D was written according to a certain vision and I think that vision is both recoverable and worth investigating.
That seems to be reasonable thing to say.

However, I have to admit that this is probably one of the grumpiest columns I've read on Grognardia. Maliszewski seems particularly bitter about D&D at the time he wrote this. Of course, those were dark days.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with you disliking the tone. I'm just saying that I took it a bit of a different way.
 
I agree with Zak here.

It's worth considering the context. The primary subject of the column is James taking Gygax to task for his explanation as too why AD&D was superior to OD&D. Maliszewski suggests that Gygax was being disingenuous as he was promoting AD&D mainly because he thought it had better commercial prospects. The post goes on to portray this as the beginning of the decline that led to 4e, which was current at the time.

I don't know if I actually agree with all of this argument. Mainly, I don't see a big connection to AD&D and the decline of D&D - I think it had more to do with mismanagement. It's probably easier to see things this way in the 5e era, when things are not nearly so grim for old-schoolers.

That being said, it's worth pointing out how he closed the post that you quote:

That seems to be reasonable thing to say.

However, I have to admit that this is probably one of the grumpiest columns I've read on Grognardia. Maliszewski seems particularly bitter about D&D at the time he wrote this. Of course, those were dark days.

Sure, as I said JMal is making a polemical argument here. Perhaps some are assuming my use of polemic as purely negative but I don't mean it that way. Polemics have their place as a genre of writing and argument. But their use of hyperbole and defintive statements can infuse their reading audience with misplaced certainty and dogmaticism. The context, qualifiers and usually good humour that he presented his arguments with are soon shorn off by his more rabid internet followers.
 
I linked directly to the DL column
Ok: I am going to read it now.

I am merely pointing out the first quote you gave does not support your idea.

So....

Let's start here:

isn't polemical?

"Polemical" is not under discussion. If it were I wouldn't blink twice. "Polemical" is not an insult.

You said "OSR chauvinism". And chauvinism is a great crime and no-one should be chauvinistic.

Let's see
ruined everything,' 'changed all that,' 'exerted a baleful influence' and 'commits even greater crimes'

This isn't "osr chauvinism" this is "anti-railroad chauvinism" and "anti-pop-paperback-fantasy chauvinism" and perhaps "anti corporate setting chauvinism"--he is talking about how Dragonlance ruined everything, not "non OSR gaming".

But then...
I don't mean to imply that all that's wrong in the hobby today -- i.e. all I dislike about the hobby

He--again--reins it all in to being just his taste.

So it ceases to be chauvinism.

Like any skilled and persuasive polemicist he sprinkles his arguments with mild qualifiers like the aforementioned 'for me' and even acknowledges he is speaking in hyperbole but that doesn't make it any less polemical. After all, if he knows it is hyperbole, why say it? Because it is rhetorical effective for his polemical aims.

You are assuming motive rather than taking James at his (pretty easy to believe) word: instead of writing an article called "How Dragonlance Ruined the Parts of D&D I Liked" he hyperbolically wrote one about how it "Ruined Everything" (because that's an easier thing to write) and then repeatedly dialed it back (the only acceptable thing to do) and reminded the reader he was acknowledging his own taste.

You are assuming he secretly meant otherwise and therefore violating "innocent until proven guilty". (Which is a rule we try to use in courts in newspapers because judgments there might have consequences on someone's real life. )

Which you're free to do. But I think it is a very bad thing to do and sets a terrible precedent for how to treat people--especially when there are so many more openly, provably bad things people online do.

What one soon saw across forums is Grognardia's narrative repeated as the gospel truth, minus any of his qualifiers.
Misquotation is never the originator's fault. Again: you're setting a terrible precedent.

I submit you wouldn't want to be judged with these standards. Maybe you would?

Or maybe you think that judgment has no consequences? It had tremendous consequences. Many people, like you, did not give James the benefit of the doubt when he went out of his (utterly timid, unthreatening, harmless) way to try to keep his statements within the bounds of grown-up discourse and they acted on their beliefs about him and this quite seriously made his life very difficult. And it had a terrible effect on his mental health.

If someone writes over and over "Ok, this is just an opinion and taste" then you're doing them a real disservice (perhaps more than you know if you've never been a person in a position like his) which has real consequences if you ignore that and substitute in your guesses about what they mean.
 
Sure, as I said JMal is making a polemical argument here. But the context, qualifiers and usually good humour that he presented his arguments with was soon shorn off by his more rabid internet followers.
I have to admit that I never read deeply into his forums. By the time I discovered the site, it was already inactive. I'm not big on comments even on most live sites, so, yeah.
 
Ok: I am going to read it now.

I am merely pointing out the first quote you gave does not support your idea.

So....

Let's start here:



"Polemical" is not under discussion. If it were I wouldn't blink twice. "Polemical" is not an insult.

You said "OSR chauvinism". And chauvinism is a great crime and no-one should be chauvinistic.

Let's see


This isn't "osr chauvinism" this is "anti-railroad chauvinism" and "anti-pop-paperback-fantasy chauvinism" and perhaps "anti corporate setting chauvinism"--he is talking about how Dragonlance ruined everything, not "non OSR gaming".

But then...


He--again--reins it all in to being just his taste.

So it ceases to be chauvinism.



You are assuming motive rather than taking James at his (pretty easy to believe) word: instead of writing an article called "How Dragonlance Ruined the Parts of D&D I Liked" he hyperbolically wrote one about how it "Ruined Everything" (because that's an easier thing to write) and then repeatedly dialed it back (the only acceptable thing to do) and reminded the reader he was acknowledging his own taste.

You are assuming he secretly meant otherwise and therefore violating "innocent until proven guilty". (Which is a rule we try to use in courts in newspapers because judgments there might have consequences on someone's real life. )

Which you're free to do. But I think it is a very bad thing to do and sets a terrible precedent for how to treat people--especially when there are so many more openly, provably bad things people online do.


Misquotation is never the originator's fault. Again: you're setting a terrible precedent.

I submit you wouldn't want to be judged with these standards. Maybe you would?

Or maybe you think that judgment has no consequences? It had tremendous consequences. Many people, like you, did not give James the benefit of the doubt when he went out of his (utterly timid, unthreatening, harmless) way to try to keep his statements within the bounds of grown-up discourse and they acted on their beliefs about him and this quite seriously made his life very difficult. And it had a terrible effect on his mental health.

If someone writes over and over "Ok, this is just an opinion and taste" then you're doing them a real disservice (perhaps more than you know if you've never been a person in a position like his) which has real consequences if you ignore that and substitute in your guesses about what they mean.

I wouldn't consider chauvinism of a particular game or playing style 'a great crime.' It's off-putting to me in the same way someone being too rabidly a fan of a particular boxer or sports team can be off-putting.

We're not talking about male chauvinism or extreme nationalism here but tastes in games.

I already addressed his use of qualifiers and why I consider them as a common tool in persuading the reader of any polemic. You can disagree with that reading but I think most reasonable people reading the DL piece would consider it a polemic despite the qualifiers.

I find some of his ideas (like 'Gygaxian Naturalism') outright wrong and the sometimes smug tone of some of JMal's columns off-putting but I hardly consider him a bad person because of it.

As I've said I've interacted with him on G+ and he always struck me as friendly and reasonable. I don't consider criticizing his writing on games as an attack on his personal character, do you?

And what do you personally think of his idea of a 'Golden Age' for TSR? Do you agree with such a simplified view of a huge variety of creative content?
 
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I wouldn't consider chauvinism of a particular game or playing style 'a great crime.'... I don't consider criticizing his writing on games as an attack on his personal character, do you?
In this case: yes
"Chauvinism: excessive or prejudiced loyalty or support for one's own cause, group"

"Excessive" means: too much. Literally: more than he should. "Prejudice": I trust I don't need to explain why this is a bad word.

It is incredibly, epically, unmissably, hilariously common knowledge that actual one-true-wayism in games has burned the online parts of the hobby to the core and made huge swaths of it basically DMZs. Actual one-true-wayists--people who genuinely like things more than they should or show prejudice have ruined a great many things in games.

So I don't think it's cool to lump him in with them when your only evidence is your guess that he means something other than what he said.
 
Framing D&D in terms of a supposedly purer 'Golden Age' with a narrative that 2e , etc was a 'Silver/Bronze' 'kiddification of D&D' (convienently ignoring Planescape, Dark Sun) and DL 'ruined everything' is textbook nostalgic reactionary not to mention falsely revisionist. He was also often absurdly uncritical of early D&D once proclaiming:

"For me, it's easy: "D&D is always right," by which I mean that the ideas and concepts we got in OD&D, whatever their origins, must be the standard by which we judge everything else.

Enough things weren't added to OD&D that I can only conclude that, if they were there, they were there because Gygax and Arneson both signed off on them and deemed them a good fit for the game they'd created."

I think you linked to the wrong Grognardia post, those words aren't in there AFAICS. Although the one you did link to was great! :grin:
 
I think you linked to the wrong Grognardia post, those words aren't in there AFAICS. Although the one you did link to was great! :grin:

The link was to the DL quote. The rest is as easy as Googling the term and Grognardia like this one on the supposed evils of 'Kiddie D&D.'
 
I find some of his ideas (like 'Gygaxian Naturalism') outright wrong and the sometimes smug tone of some of JMal's columns off-putting...

He always seemed to annoy a lot of people - people who would most likely agree with him that Dragonlance-style railroad campaigns suck. I could never really figure out why. I guess I'm used to academic writing a lot more pompous than JMal's.

Re 'Gygaxian Naturalism', I found it a very useful concept for explaining something I don't particularly like and have tended to move away from. If I didn't understand the concept, then I wouldn't be in a good position to reject it. It's the opposite of the 'Dungeon As Mythic Underworld' concept I've become attracted to, and it explained to me why all those Dragon Magazine "Ecology of the..." articles were in practice detrimental to my enjoyment of the game.
 
He always seemed to annoy a lot of people - people who would most likely agree with him that Dragonlance-style railroad campaigns suck. I could never really figure out why. I guess I'm used to academic writing a lot more pompous than JMal's.

Re 'Gygaxian Naturalism', I found it a very useful concept for explaining something I don't particularly like and have tended to move away from. If I didn't understand the concept, then I wouldn't be in a good position to reject it. It's the opposite of the 'Dungeon As Mythic Underworld' concept I've become attracted to, and it explained to me why all those Dragon Magazine "Ecology of the..." articles were in practice detrimental to my enjoyment of the game.

I think there is such a thing as Fantasy Naturalism, which is a legit approach to world building, even if I don't care for it myself either.

I just disagree that there was anything Gygaxian about it or anything he modeled in most of his adventures or advice. What is 'naturalistic' about The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Vault of the Drow or The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror? The strength of his best work is how evocative and wildly imaginative it is, not any supposed 'naturalism' that I find pretty hard to locate in these works.
 
In this case: yes
"Chauvinism: excessive or prejudiced loyalty or support for one's own cause, group"

"Excessive" means: too much. Literally: more than he should. "Prejudice": I trust I don't need to explain why this is a bad word.

It is incredibly, epically, unmissably, hilariously common knowledge that actual one-true-wayism in games has burned the online parts of the hobby to the core and made huge swaths of it basically DMZs. Actual one-true-wayists--people who genuinely like things more than they should or show prejudice have ruined a great many things in games.

So I don't think it's cool to lump him in with them when your only evidence is your guess that he means something other than what he said.

To repeat myself, I consider his use of qualifiers just part of a persuasive strategy in his polemic. You follow a very strong declarative statement with a tossed off qualifier. This is a bog standard technique in rhetoric.

Are you saying if someone argued that "In my humble opinion, I'm the greatest writer ever, better than Shakespeare, Proust and Lady Murasaki combined." They wouldn't be making an absurd statement of greatness because they attached some pro forma qualifiers?

I consider One-True-Wayism regarding RPGs very annoying but not worthy of the moral seriousness you seem to take it. I think it is just part of the heightened and often silly rhetoric of the net.

If JMal himself took offense at my criticism as you have on his behalf I would apologize to him. My limited but pleasant online experience with him would suggest he would not take it as personally as you seem to be doing on his behalf.
 
I just disagree that there was anything Gygaxian about it or anything he modeled in most of his adventures or advice. What is 'naturalistic' about The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Vault of the Drow or The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror? The strength of his best work is how evocative and wildly imaginative it is, not any supposed 'naturalism' that I find pretty hard to locate in these works.

Sure - but Gygaxian Naturalism is not primarily about the adventures, it's about the presentation of monsters in the Monster Manual, and to a much lesser extent the world building advice in the DMG.

I will say, I am running The Village of Hommlet currently via PBP and Gygax's naturalistic flourishes there are great for immersion, for making the world feel real.
 
lol, almost sounds verbatim like a quote from Pundit's "precepts" or whatever they were called. Funny, as he hates Grognardia with a passion.

Yeah they both seem to have gotten worked up over the existence of products like D&D colouring books and toys as well for some reason.
 
I think you linked to the wrong Grognardia post, those words aren't in there AFAICS. Although the one you did link to was great! :grin:
It's below in the comments, not the original post.
 
Sure - but Gygaxian Naturalism is not primarily about the adventures, it's about the presentation of monsters in the Monster Manual, and to a much lesser extent the world building advice in the DMG.

I will say, I am running The Village of Hommlet currently via PBP and Gygax's naturalistic flourishes there are great for immersion, for making the world feel real.

I wouldn't consider the detailed minutiae of Hommlet 'naturalistic' per se but I may be thinking of the term more narrowly than it is often being used in these conversations.

I may have to go back an re-look at the MM as I don't recall much in the way of naturalism or even much real detail in most of the write-ups.
 
I wouldn't consider the detailed minutiae of Hommlet 'naturalistic' per se but I may be thinking of the term more narrowly than it is often being used in these conversations.

I was thinking of the presentation of the above-ground Moathouse especially, though the maps of Hommlet and the design of the Welcome Wench and the Rufus/Burne tower keep are also factors. Even though parts of Hommlet are 'unrealistic', like the jeweler and the cabinetmaker, to me they reek of Gygaxian Natural-ism - in a good way.
 
lol, almost sounds verbatim like a quote from Pundit's "precepts" or whatever they were called. Funny, as he hates Grognardia with a passion.

Sometimes it seems like who-hates-who in the OSR is entirely the result of a random number generator. I wouldn't have guessed that Zak S would look kindly on a rather fuddy-duddy conservative Catholic traditionalist like James Maliszewski; if I might have guessed that Pundit would hate on both of them it's only because that tends to be his default!
 
This is a long-ass quiz.
1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:
I like some OSR blogs, but not enough that anything sticks out in my memory.
2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:
Rulings, not rules.
3. Best OSR module/supplement:
That's a really tough one, but I'll go with Anomalous Subsurface Environment.
4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):
I'd be inclined to pick one of a half-dozen rules for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Pick one: the skill system, the encumbrance system, the fact that only fighters improve at hitting things.
5. How I found out about the OSR:
To be honest, I read an article on some online periodical (probably Wired, not sure) which profiled Zak. I was very interested in the kinds of settings and the playstyle I was hearing about. I had long ago decided that D&D didn't have cool adult settings, and the idea of OSR was new to me. From there, I think my next moves were reading a bunch of things on Grognardia and buying A Red and Pleasant Land.
6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:
People will quibble about whether DCC is OSR, but the Purple Sorcerer tools are absolutely top-notch time savers.
7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:
Good news: you are there.
8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:
The DCC G+ group, from time-to-time (and soon nevermore). The last two Gen Cons. People I game with, and my wife in measured doses.
9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:
I can't think of one that nobody appreciates enough. Crypts & Things could use a signal boost.

EDIT: I misread this one, somehow reading "game" instead of "take." I've developed a few interesting ideas about RPGs recently, but they aren't specific to OSR. One theme that has emerged from recent conversations is that both the hobby could benefit from a community that does a better job of bringing in new players and connected interested players to actually run games.
10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:
Over the Edge
11. Why I like OSR stuff:
The D&D mechanics are the least interesting part of OSR. What I really dig are the playstyle, and the kind of offbeat content it tends to attract.
12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:
Yoon Suin and A Thousand Dead Babies.
13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:
Probably Coins and Scrolls, but maybe Goblin Punch.
14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:
It's far from perfect, but I'm pretty proud of The Magician's House.
15. I'm currently running/playing:
Played 5e just this Friday, and I'm preparing to run a super-simple homebrew that bridges X-Files and Delta Green. It doesn't have a name, yet.
16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:
Life is too short.
17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:
emirikol-the-chaotic.jpg
 
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I've always been bugged by the term Gygaxian naturalism. There was definitely a strain of old school naturalism in D&D back when I got into it, but it never seemed to center on Gygax in particular. He might use it in places, but he'd be just as happy to use "a wizard did it" elements if it better suited what he needed at the time. He could be admirably flexible in that regard.

I feel like the popularity of the term gives gives a lot of gamers a false impression of what Gygax's work is like, and falsely attributing the mindset to Gygax gives the impression that it was more common in old school play than it really was.

Getting back to the actual topic, it's a really interesting set of questions. I'm going to come back and answer them when I am not on two hours sleep.
 
I've always been bugged by the term Gygaxian naturalism. There was definitely a strain of old school naturalism in D&D back when I got into it, but it never seemed to center on Gygax in particular. He might use it in places, but he'd be just as happy to use "a wizard did it" elements if it better suited what he needed at the time. He could be admirably flexible in that regard.

I feel like the popularity of the term gives gives a lot of gamers a false impression of what Gygax's work is like, and falsely attributing the mindset to Gygax gives the impression that it was more common in old school play than it really was.

I think the naturalism was just one strain in Gygax's approach, and it was an aspect of the Modernist or rationalist approach of seeing the fantasy world in quasi-scientic terms. Very different from the mythic or neo-pagan approach of Greg Stafford and Runequest's Glorantha.

But in the 1980s, what JMal calls the Silver Age, the naturalistic approach became dominant, minotaurs and manticores acquired "Ecologies", and the balance shifted away from the mythic Underworld of OD&D with its subterranean (in more than one sense!) theme of the Heroes' Journey, of going into Darkness to bring back the Light. I think this weakened the game.
 
Sometimes it seems like who-hates-who in the OSR is entirely the result of a random number generator. I wouldn't have guessed that Zak S would look kindly on a rather fuddy-duddy conservative Catholic traditionalist like James Maliszewski; if I might have guessed that Pundit would hate on both of them it's only because that tends to be his default!

I despise error and carelessness for other people and intellectual laziness.

Mal and I see the world very differently but he was conscientious and he didn't do what Pundit does or Voros is doing now, which is make shit up about people and then judge them on that.

I can blame him for his mistakes--but not the "mistakes" people made up.

Again: there are so many explicitly and provably bad things people have done on the RPG internet, why you'd start your complaining with people who have done nothing wrong you can prove is beyond me.

If James Mal was the one-true-wayist so many of his trolls claimed he was I would hate him too: that attitude has been the cause of a great deal of damage to the conversation. But he isn't.
 
If James Mal was the one-true-wayist so many of his trolls claimed he was I would hate him too: that attitude has been the cause of a great deal of damage to the conversation. But he isn't.

Definitely agree!
 
Okay, I will play along because I hear there are fabulous prizes...

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:
I don't read OSR blogs but
https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/ is good for anyone who wants to disabuse himself of misconceptions regarding Traveller ('77 edition).
My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:
DIY
3. Best OSR module/supplement:
I don't think I have any from which to make a judgment of this type.
4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):
None come to mind. I haven't played in anyone else's game in a long time.
5. How I found out about the OSR:
I found out about the OSR circa 2011-2012 when I was on jury duty and googling game-related things on a lunch break. I found it amusing that people were claiming "old-school" gaming had some orthodoxy and that it was undergoing a revival or renaissance. Coincidentally, the first blog I read about it on was Grognardia. I found Grognardia somewhat interesting.
6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:
https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/ , at least when he writes about Traveller '77.
7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:
In person, otherwise www.rpgpub.com
8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:
Nowhere else online, if that's what you mean.
9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:
N/A, I remain unconvinced that the OSR exists except as a marketing gimmick.
10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:
Ghostbusters.
11. Why I like OSR stuff:
I don't really have any "OSR stuff," but I like DIY stuff.
12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:
Unclear phrasing as you haven't named any "cool OSR things" in this questionnaire; did you mean things you named elsewhere?
13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:
See answer to #1. I don't have a blog.
14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:
A referee screen for Pendragon.
15. I'm currently running/playing:
D&D '74 Traveller '77, Ghostbusters.
16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:
I'm not at your table; I don't care if you wear fangs, a cape, and no pants.
17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:
20180808_231846.jpg 20180826_181817.jpg 20180831_125913.jpg
 
I wouldn't consider the detailed minutiae of Hommlet 'naturalistic' per se but I may be thinking of the term more narrowly than it is often being used in these conversations.

I think so - I was just looking at the descriptions in Vault of the Drow, and while evocative I would definitely call them naturalistic. Erelhei-Cinlu is definitely presented as a 'real place'; and even demons have their powers described in quasi-scientific terms -
"The entire spectrum of radiation can be seen by nycadaemons, i.e. infrared, ultraviolet, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves, etc" was one line that particularly struck me.
 
In regards to my earlier comment - I finally got around to reading the linked Grognardia blog post in question and the comments (which had been sitting among my dozens of open tabs all this time), and I feel the need to post a retraction. The comment by JMal was taken completely out of context on my part, and it actually bears absolutely no resemblance to the statements by Pundit I compared it to.
 
The D&D mechanics are the least interesting part of OSR. What I really dig are the playstyle, and the kind of offbeat content it tends to attract.
....
EDIT: I misread this one, somehow reading "game" instead of "take." I've developed a few interesting ideas about RPGs recently, but they aren't specific to OSR. One theme that has emerged from recent conversations is that both the hobby could benefit from a community that does a better job of bringing in new players and connected interested players to actually run games...

Two points worthy of further discussion I think.

One thing I do worry with the OSR is some of it may be repeating the old mistake of attempting to convert everything into the D&D system.

I like the core D&D system for low level to heroic fantasy play but in the past there were far too many systems that were D&D based when it made little to no sense in regards of the genre or setting it was trying to evoke. So we got (and have gotten) D&D sf, D&D westerns, CoC in D&D, WWII D&D.

I'm a believer that a system needs to be crafted for the genre or setting it is in and trying to twist everything into D&D ___________ is jujt a lack of real thought and creativity in RPG design. Just because you love D&D doesn't mean everything needs to be D&D. Some systems, like Stars without Number, are good but I'm not convinced they wouldn't be even better if they weren't D&D based.

In regards to player recruitment and getting more players to DM. What are y'all's view of the OSR in this regard?

My impression is that the OSR is mostly composed of 30-somethings-and-older who played earlier versions of D&D. Not sure how good of a job it is doing in bringing in younger players. There seem to be a number of younger OSR designers...players though? Not sure.

I think DCC is doing the best job in having a friendly, young and active community in the OSR. Not sure why that is, maybe some of you with more experience with DCC in play can let us know.
 
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