So, what has been the impact of OSR?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Looking over the successful 5e KS, it seems most of them are in the respectable mid-range equal to indie and OSR releases, approx. avg of $30,000-80,000, strictly eyeballing.

The biggest 5e success from a quick look, putting aside Colville, is Humblewood by Hit Point Press with 14,604 backers and $1,339,208!

The comeback of zines in the OSR is more following a trend than creating it. I had some younger friends in the art/music community who started doing zines years ago. I think it is part of the younger generation’s pseudo-nostalgia for the ‘authentic’ and physical, similar to their revived interest in boardgames, vinyl and even cassettes. I dig all those things, besides cassettes, so that’s all good to me.
 
Last edited:
The nice thing about the social media aspect of the OSR are the numerous accounts of I used OD&D/BXD&D/AD&D/etc or something similar in a campaign and had fun.

Which is the point, how does it work in actual play. The answer so far has been positive.

For instance, I was aware of B/X Essentials and didn't really see the point of it in regards to the original or Labyrinth Lord. However one my best friend like it a lot and ran a campaign using it. I now see its merits. It is a well done take on B/X D&D and super easy to use at the table.
 
The nice thing about the social media aspect of the OSR are the numerous accounts of I used OD&D/BXD&D/AD&D/etc or something similar in a campaign and had fun.

Which is the point, how does it work in actual play. The answer so far has been positive.

For instance, I was aware of B/X Essentials and didn't really see the point of it in regards to the original or Labyrinth Lord. However one my best friend like it a lot and ran a campaign using it. I now see its merits. It is a well done take on B/X D&D and super easy to use at the table.
One thing I would really love to see is a reasonably comprehensive listing of OSR games and some details about them. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following things:

Name of game
Edition of D&D it's closest to (or intended to emulate)
Elevator pitch for the game (in a paragraph or two, why should I be interested in YOUR take on D&D)
Cost (for full up and is there a free no frills version or starter set)
License
Is an SRD or text document no frills version available
Compatibility summary (what changes have you made from the closest version of D&D, should at least hint if there are minor changes you don't want to list out)
Designers notes (why did you make the changes you did)

I'm going to be making use of Old School Essentials. I had decided to use BX, and then the Old School Essentials kick starter launched right as I was getting my game going. I like the intent to be true to the original so I can use either set of books. I know Labyrinth Lord is popular but looking at some quick things I see it is not true (and immediately a difference would show up with LL clerics getting a spell at 1st level).

I have originals for OD&D+Supplements, Holmes, BX, BECM, and AD&D, so I don't need the clones. But if I'm running a BX game it's handy to be able to point players to Old School Essentials and they won't get surprised. And if it's a bit easier for me to reference, that's cool, but I also don't have to worry if I make a ruling using either the OSE PDF or my BX hard copies.

Frank
 
One thing I would really love to see is a reasonably comprehensive listing of OSR games and some details about them. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following things:

The closest I came was this

It is a pain in the ass to maintain and I stopped around 2012.

However it is a worthy project. Somebody will get a lot of kudos and goodwill if they pull it off.

Probably some shit as well. Omnibus project like this invariably do. The magical incantation to minimize this off is to say "A list of system that I have read, played and documented." as opposed to "A comprehensive of list of OSR games." That way if somebody complains why X isn't on the list, the reply is "I have not gotten around to it." Instead of "I don't think it is a OSR game."

None of this eliminates the problem but minimizes the issue. I learned this with promoting the Majestic Wilderlands supplement.

Name of game
Edition of D&D it's closest to (or intended to emulate)
.....
Good points and to go off on a related tangent a nebulous project in my mind is a "Build your own clone kit".
  • Make an outline that a RPG would have
  • Research the open content options for each subheading.
  • Rewrite them as individual concise block of text.
  • Then present them as a menu of options. That when traversed produces a consistent retro-clone tailored to your taste.

Like in the class and race section one question would be do you want Race as Class? If it is yes then use X block of text, if not then use Y block of text.

If this inspires anybody reading to make this happen, I am all for it.

I'm going to be making use of Old School Essentials. I had decided to use BX, and then the Old School Essentials kick starter launched right as I was getting my game going. I like the intent to be true to the original so I can use either set of books. I know Labyrinth Lord is popular but looking at some quick things I see it is not true (and immediately a difference would show up with LL clerics getting a spell at 1st level).

I have the original B/X rulebooks myself both in print and PDF and experienced what you did. As for Labyrinth Lord, it long been true that inches separate many of the clones. The only sane response is to say "Sound good whatever floats your boat is good with me."

I have originals for OD&D+Supplements, Holmes, BX, BECM, and AD&D, so I don't need the clones. But if I'm running a BX game it's handy to be able to point players to Old School Essentials and they won't get surprised. And if it's a bit easier for me to reference, that's cool, but I also don't have to worry if I make a ruling using either the OSE PDF or my BX hard copies.
You are not along in that regard. As for myself I tend to rewrite whatever RPG I run. Sometime I tinker with the rules but mostly it to get into a card format I use that make getting players up to speed quicker and running the campaign easier.

Currently I have a half-dozen digest size binders I use for D&D 5e, Classic Traveller, my Majestic Fantasy Rules, AiME, and others.

For example this for classic Traveller
 
Point.
However, it’s really simpler. The OSR peeps are being OSR. Lot of the narrative peeps are trying to be branded OSR. That tells you all you need to know about impact. :devil:
Or rather, about perceived impact:smile:.
 
SNAGGED!
The most useful thing in this whole thread, thanks!
Cool!
So I do have something else that I comfortable with sharing. But a little back story.
One of my best friends is a 20 year veteran of the US Marines and retired a Master Sergeant. So we started with Classic Traveller RAW with a few house rules to iron out what you can do in a round. Within two sessions he disliked how weapons were portrayed based on his experience in the Marine. So we lifted the Armor values from Mongoose/Cepheus and ditch the armor modifiers. He then came up with a new system of range modifiers along with different sights including how they improved over different TLs.

He also added recoil which reduced autofire to a single roll. The way it works is that, you roll to hit and add in skill and modifiers. If you roll 8+ you hit. You reduce that number by the recoil until it dips below 8. That how many autofire shot hit.

So if you have a recoil of 2, rate of fire of 5, and rolled a 12 after adding modifiers. You would hit with 12, 10, 8 three shots. If you shift targets you would loose a shot. So one shot hits two targets.
Here are the new tables
 
The closest I came was thisGood points and to go off on a related tangent a nebulous project in my mind is a "Build your own clone kit".
  • Make an outline that a RPG would have
  • Research the open content options for each subheading.
  • Rewrite them as individual concise block of text.
  • Then present them as a menu of options. That when traversed produces a consistent retro-clone tailored to your taste.

Like in the class and race section one question would be do you want Race as Class? If it is yes then use X block of text, if not then use Y block of text.

If this inspires anybody reading to make this happen, I am all for it.
Right here, this is the problem with the OSR.

It's this, but an order of magnitude more so.

standards.png
 
It a tool to construct a clone based on D&D mechanics not a statement that defines what a clone is.

You need to check your comprehension of the English language.

Oh and I can do the XKCD thing too

View attachment 10079
Irony is beyond you, isn't it. You're saying you want a toolkit to create closes of a game that has been cloned by my search some 2356 times already. As a search using OSR and Dungeons and Dragons keywords on Drivethru RPG will show.

10081

The problem isn't my comprehension of English. It's apparently a plethora of people not comprehending what 'oversaturated market' means.

Including you.

The irony being, you yourself pointed out how easy it is to add a couple of thousand words to an existing system, call it some fancy name and claim it as all new. And then didn't like when somebody pointed out that you're espousing doing just that.

But it's completely different from the two and a half thousand products already out there!
 
Here's a story from Chris Rea from back in the day.

You grow cabbages on your garden for your own pleasure. Nobody in the world has the right to say bad things about your cabbages. They're yours and you can be as proud of them as you like. But the moment you put those cabbages up for sale in the fruit and veg shop, everyone in the world has the right to be as critical of your cabbages as they want to be.

He was talking about music, but the same principle applies whenever you sell anything to the public.

The more I look at the OSR, the more I think it's a swamp. There's literally thousands of, if not identical, very similar products out there. And because of the low bar of entry, this time next week will see even more of them. Some are great, but I have no doubt that a vast amount of them are little more than pretty house rules for one of a handful of systems.

And great, run your book up the flag pole and see who salutes it. It's a fantastic way to get yourself out there. And if you're willing to put the work in, you too could end up in a position like Zweihander.

I really think the groundbreaking work has been done with the OSR. Now it seems like clones in different hats all the way down. It's a snake endlessly eating it's own tail, rolling along with finer and finer variations on the same old things. I may be proved wrong. I hope I am.

But, it did mean that WotC put the much of the old TSR material out there. So if nothing else, the fact that other people were trying to cash in on older editions of D&D meant that the material things like OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, Dark Dungeons and so on were retro cloning got the originals back on the (digital) shelves.
 
The comeback of zines in the OSR is more following a trend than creating it. I had some younger friends in the art/music community who started doing zines years ago. I think it is part of the younger generation’s pseudo-nostalgia for the ‘authentic’ and physical, similar to their revived interest in boardgames, vinyl and even cassettes. I dig all those things, besides cassettes, so that’s all good to me.
I don't have a dog in this fight but I do want to ramble on like an old man and say I am pleased with the trend of OSR zines. As someone who published and traded zines in the 90's, it's a callback to self-expression for its own sake, Few made money doing it; I broke even only because I worked at Kinko's at the time. Part of the OSR's appeal to me is that I see some of that same spirit in these one-man operations publishing material without concern for monetization.
 
I don't have a dog in this fight but I do want to ramble on like an old man and say I am pleased with the trend of OSR zines. As someone who published and traded zines in the 90's, it's a callback to self-expression for its own sake, Few made money doing it; I broke even only because I worked at Kinko's at the time. Part of the OSR's appeal to me is that I see some of that same spirit in these one-man operations publishing material without concern for monetization.
I still miss Interface.
 
So what was the issue?

My experience wasn't the same.


Each years' players were stupider than the previous year's. Getting nothing done, dithering, wasting time... MY time.

The last straw this year is me telling players, flat out, "DON'T ARGUE IN THE DUNGEON, WANDERING MONSTERS WILL KILL YOU" and being told "NO WE'RE NOT LEAVING WE'RE GOING TO SETTLE THIS HERE."

So wandering monsters killed them.

Three times in a night.

TL;DR The players at GaryCon get stupider every year.
 
Each years' players were stupider than the previous year's. Getting nothing done, dithering, wasting time... MY time.

The last straw this year is me telling players, flat out, "DON'T ARGUE IN THE DUNGEON, WANDERING MONSTERS WILL KILL YOU" and being told "NO WE'RE NOT LEAVING WE'RE GOING TO SETTLE THIS HERE."

So wandering monsters killed them.

Three times in a night.

TL;DR The players at GaryCon get stupider every year.
I blame certain fantasy, ahem, works, Glorious General. May I recommend warning the players next year that they should have clarify the relationships between their PCs before entering a dungeon, since "trying to do that after entering is a good way to an early grave with nobody wasting the money for Raise the Dead on your dumb ass", or words to that extent:grin:?
 
The closest I came was this

It is a pain in the ass to maintain and I stopped around 2012.

However it is a worthy project. Somebody will get a lot of kudos and goodwill if they pull it off.

Probably some shit as well. Omnibus project like this invariably do. The magical incantation to minimize this off is to say "A list of system that I have read, played and documented." as opposed to "A comprehensive of list of OSR games." That way if somebody complains why X isn't on the list, the reply is "I have not gotten around to it." Instead of "I don't think it is a OSR game."
Hmm, I had't considered how many systems really are out there, but it sure would be nice to understand why someone might promote game X over game Y.

Good points and to go off on a related tangent a nebulous project in my mind is a "Build your own clone kit".
  • Make an outline that a RPG would have
  • Research the open content options for each subheading.
  • Rewrite them as individual concise block of text.
  • Then present them as a menu of options. That when traversed produces a consistent retro-clone tailored to your taste.

Like in the class and race section one question would be do you want Race as Class? If it is yes then use X block of text, if not then use Y block of text.

Now that would be cool. I actually sort of advocated for a lesser version of this in the past. Then clones could just be expressed as a string of menu selections...

You are not along in that regard. As for myself I tend to rewrite whatever RPG I run. Sometime I tinker with the rules but mostly it to get into a card format I use that make getting players up to speed quicker and running the campaign easier.

Currently I have a half-dozen digest size binders I use for D&D 5e, Classic Traveller, my Majestic Fantasy Rules, AiME, and others.

For example this for classic Traveller
Oh, sweet. Yoink. Not necessarily that I will use it, but I love to see what others have done. Yoinked your combat/weapons one also. These days I'm all for playing the game more or less as written, but who knows I might go back to armor absorbs damage type rules again someday.

Frank
 
Hmm, I had't considered how many systems really are out there, but it sure would be nice to understand why someone might promote game X over game Y.

These days it seems to be more about authenticity. System is a factor but authenticity in the sense of an author being true to their stated creative vision and executing it well. I know that sounds incredibly vague and highly subjective. But what it amount too is a patron client relationship being established where the customer is the patron and the author is the client. And patron tend to invest what the author is doing because they contribute materially.

But there really no single magic bullet, it boils down to the author doing their best work, be courteous and friendly. Following through on their promise and don't make ones they can't keep.

Now that would be cool. I actually sort of advocated for a lesser version of this in the past. Then clones could just be expressed as a string of menu selections...

Yeah it would. The back story is somebody somewhere asked me about how to handle initiative and listed four common methods for initiative with D&D. Then they asked about class and some other mechanics that changes between editions. After all that somebody pipes up, not me, hey wouldn't it be cool if you make some kind of menu thing where pick which options you want to use.

At the time, I figured it would be piece of software that spits out a PDF or document. But now with HTML5 and javascript, you could do this better with a website and still spit out a document.

Oh, sweet. Yoink. Not necessarily that I will use it, but I love to see what others have done. Yoinked your combat/weapons one also. These days I'm all for playing the game more or less as written, but who knows I might go back to armor absorbs damage type rules again someday..

Glad it will be of use to you. As for weapon and armor, while I am the referee of the campaign, there a point where you can't argue against a Marine Master Sergeant that your best friend
 
Well, since "OSR" became a thing, I have noticed fewer people giving me shit for still playing OD&D, and a growth of stuff in dealer's rooms at cons of stuff that reminds me of 1977 in a good way.
Must be nice. I still get shit for liking to play the latest editions. For the past 20+ years...
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top