Monday, January 9, 2012

OSR is a SHAM!!


For the record I don't believe OSR is a sham its a wonderful movement that I dearly am glad for. But I see many people out there pounding their chests right now proclaiming victory in the name of all D&D ... solely on the basis of the OSR movement and for me that is record scratching ... "Whutcha talkin bout Willis" moment. By saying something like that though I'm trying to make a ... probably lame ... but I think somewhat relevant point. Why does this constant justification to exist need to be made by the OSR people. It seems to dominate much of the discourse in the OSR community and for the life of me I can't figure out why. To me the reasons OSR exist and will continue to exist are self evident. That said there is also this propensity to I think overblow the size and impact OSR is having, which I think undermines some credibility and diverts the discussion away from where it should be. Look people this blog is shitty ... lol ... I know it. It is a thought journal for me really, just a little place to toss out an idea or record something I'm thinking about, working on, doing with the game group.

I really have zero expectation that it will ever be all that interesting to very many people. But there are blogs out there where the authors/owners choose to really spend alot of time and effort on the content, and they start to have a stronger voice and develop a community around them. I think with that comes a little responsibility, especially in communities like the OSR community. I guess that is the nature of my long, rambling rant here. I sort of hope for the best from the OSR guys because I respect what they are trying to do.

To me the OSR movement was much more akin to say the Occupy movement as not. It was about OWNING ones own game. About returning to something that wasn't broken and didn't need to be fixed. It was a little bit about nostaliga, a little bit about small amateur game design, about blogging and podcasting and just having fun. OSR was a reaction to the grid ... I will say that again ... it was a reaction to the grid based 3.0-4e era versions of D&D (including Pathfinder).

The 5th edition frenzy today really has me a little non-plussed at some of the commentary form people regarding OSR. OSR is a movement towards 1st/basic edition D&D ... period. It is special and interesting and cool ... and really apparently full of itself. OSR is not singlehandedly responsible for the demise of 4e, and I don't care what anyone says OSR isn't the driving force behind new 5th ed. It does not have the vast numbers that people out there to warrant some of the rhetoric people are spouting right now. OSR defeated evil Hasbro ... huh? Ummm ... no. Sorry guys. Paizo has probably a 90% greater claim to that. Lets face it 3.0-4e era D&D just has some serious design flaws ... just because the OSR crowd has recognized that doesn't mean they are RESPONSIBLE for the demise of 4e ... lol. Yet some people are actually SAYING that ... it is silly.

To my knowledge the OSR community is a community of tens of thousands perhaps low hundreds of thousands ... VS ... what low millions for the 3.5/Pathfinder fans. So who is going to have more influence?

Beyond this ... and far, far more importantly in my mind. Individual self proclaimed OSR leaders are claiming some kind of design superiority based on their association with OSR?!?!? What??? To me I see the "indie" RPG scene as potentially a far better place to draw inspiration from as the game moves forward. If old school D&D was so vastly superior why were so many so willing to jump to new versions? Why did it take so long for OSR to begin? I personally think OSR came to be and thrived because of grid based D&D .. pretty much alone. Old School D&D is not a main stream cup of tea. The insane dungeon ecology of many of the Gygax era stuff is nostalgically fun, but very campy and even for a fantasy game ... so woefully unrealistic ... "why is the underground goblin empire next to the red dragon's lair ... under a lake of gray ooze ... with a Minotaur civilization living along its banks ... all in the area the size of a suburban mall."

That stuff was great fun when I was 12 back in the mid 80s but it isn't going to be fun for many adults these days. Its a great "he he" lets have some beers and relive 1984 for a night kinda experience, but it doesn't make for long standing, intellectually stimulating, deep RP kinda campaigns. I know D&D has mostly never been about that, but there has for a long time been at least an attempt at blending in some maturity and intellectually stimulating elements into the game. Some very challenging moral and ethical dilemmas, etc.

Much if not most, of OSR is campy "how do we use this ten foot pole to defeat the evil overlord" kinda stuff. Again, wonderful, delightful, hilarious, potentially dark and devious ... old school goodness. But it is just that. It is constrained by that era of game design, that style of game. Why constrain D&D? Why not instead look more to games like Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Dogs in the Vineyard. Of course not entirely and you couldn't really do that out loud ... game designers would have to be blending elements into the mix. I hope elements of basic/1st ed era return as well as elements from 2nd ed. I hope the preserve some of the good stuff from 3.0-4e era D&D as well. But I dearly hope that they look towards some of the really cutting edge RPGs in the indie/small press category as well. Above all I hope we can at least have a by the rules option to NOT USE THE GRID in 5th ed D&D.

I also hope that the OSR people can stop proclaiming victory over WoTC as theirs alone. The Paizo/3.5 guys have done a bigger part in terms of just not giving WoTC cash for a bad game and making due with what it was they like about D&D ... just like the OSR guys have. What about the third column of D&D dissent ... the guys like me ... who just stopped playing all together? I stopped giving WoTC money and I didn't have a chance and/or the inclination to get whole hog into OSR and tried as I might 3.0-Pathfinder D&D was just never for me. I did my 4e time and then left. So where does that leave the guys who still love D&D but feel dispossessed? Hopefully WoTC is looking to bring us back into the fold as well and if so I hope they aren't going to just stamp a brand on OSRs ass or Pathfinder-ize D&D (they couldn't we all know we won't see a simple return to OGL, I'm just saying ...). No 5th ed is a move in a new direction and we all need to keep things in perspective and watch the epeen and chest thumping.

D&D has been a sick old cancer ridden man with a bad heart and cataracts ... for a long time. Its time to pass the torch, not time to jump up and down about his demise. But micro-celebrities in the blog-o-sphere are going to likely do alot of "I told you so" high five crap. It is inevitable. I think all of us have been saying we see 4e on the way out for a long time. I could thump my chest a bit saying I predicted this over a year ago ... but that would be bogus because I follow many blogs, talk to a wide range of people in different towns, at cons, etc. etc. about gaming and just absorb what others are saying. Such is the nature of a constantly plugged in world. I'm looking at this as a moment when there is some opportunity to bridge some rifts and heal some wounds and I hope that the overall OSR community, the players of pathfinder, 3.0/3.5 ed guys, etc. will try to exert positive influence if indeed WoTC is going to be listening.

Again hope against hope I do that this is the ticket we've all been waiting for and so that is how I'm going to leave my mind on 5th ed for now. I would be shocked if we see the game out before next fall at the earliest and I wouldn't be half surprised to see it come in the spring or summer of 2013 (a Gencon 2013 launch would make sense).

Addendum to the original post (just because its too big to fit in the comments section):


I don't disagree about demographics mattering and I don't disagree with the point about amount spent vs. people who play. Though even there don't go too far with discounting numbers. You can be certain that Hasbro pays attention to the numbers not just who is spending right now. They are looking at market share, number of customers, etc. those guys might not be buying books but maybe they will chip in with some buddies for a group DDI account, maybe they'll buy some D&D special edition dice or whatnot, etc. Maybe they won't buy books but maybe they will buy a video game. So WoTC does make decisions as probably does Paizo based on numbers ... not just on who is spending today or next month. I don't want to over state that though nor suggest that how many people playing something vs. how many people buying it ... clearly I fully concede by far how many people are buying is the most important of the two. Obviously and if I overstated I was wrong.

A age old anecdote about the RPG industry that I've heard for years and heard industry folks at GAMA say in a tongue in cheek fashion "the average RPG consumer spends 0.00 per year on actually RPG materials." RPG fans have historically been cheap, pirates who are content to plunder their rules, or share a players handbook between five people.

One of my main points actually and I'm sorry I expressed it poorly, is that Pathfinder is selling alot more product than OSR, again if you don't give OSR the huge boost by including all small press/indie RPGs with OSR. I believe that the amount spent on Pathfinder alone is more than all of OSR, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't by a wide margin. Again we are not lumping small press RPGs or Indie RPGs with OSR. They are not part of OSR. Mouseguard, Dogs in the Vineyard, Fiasco, Dresden Files are not OSR. So all that activity while having impact probably on WoTCs sales (maybe I don't know what kind of crossover there is). Again NO CLUE if that is the case just posing a theory.

If that isn't the case though and someone can link something to disprove that statement ... then indeed my logic is flawed ... otherwise it still holds water.

Another thing I will admit, I say it constantly on this "blog" of mine. I'm not a pro/elite blogger. I sit, I type, I don't even edit. Its a one shot, spur of the moment thought journal for me basically. Just a way to put an idea out there and see what people think if anyone even responds. Its mostly just a cathartic exercise for me. I have a masters degree in public administration, I've taken some business and economics courses but I am by no means a stock analyst or economist.

My main reason for saying these things and/or posing the theory is I keep asking myself what are OSR people spending their money on? My experience with OSR is alot of free or very cheaply priced product with a few exceptions. My experience with OSR is also alot of second hand purchases. OSR people tend to spend alot on ebay, alot on old 1st ed. modules, etc. That = zero benefit or effect upon WoTC or Paizo. I will theorize again that the Paizo guys, are outspending both the OSR and the 4e fans these days. That was the main point.

Clearly and obviously demographics matter. The baby boomers have far more disposable wealth than any other population cohort right now. Working professionals of all generations have more to spend on games, etc. so if someone can market a product do you want to market them to people with money? Or 18-25 year olds who tend to not have anywhere near as much discretionary income? Business 101 does apply I don't disagree. If we really got into the issue, it would require proprietary info from Hasbro and Paizo and some sort of "industry" wide numbers for OSR. But again ... how many OSR people are there? I see some blogs, I see some podcasts. I see no local brick and mortar stores in my area (or many places at least in the Western US) that heavily cater to OSR. I do see those stores catering to Paizo folks and still selling D&D. I see D&D and Pathfinder for sale at Barnes and Noble, en mass on Amazon. I don't see as much OSR stuff though. That is my point. I see many people proclaiming how big OSR is and now how large their purchasing power is. Yet I don't see any data to support that? I do agree if you lump OSR in with ALL the small press RPG activity it is substantital but that is disingenious as the Indie-Small Press RPG scene is not about OSR really at all. Its about Cubicle 7, Evil Hat, IPR, Drive Through RPG, etc. certainly some OSR stuff is traded on those sites and on lulu. Again though unless each OSR fan is spending hundreds each year on PDFs ... they are in my opinion not even going to be close to the spending levels of Paizo fans. Who are buying their publications and now miniatures, etc. etc. in large quantities all over the place.

For example The Warstore, Miniature Market, just to name a few carry Paizo products. I don't see really any OSR products there though. So this big OSR puff up about how OSR is doing all things for the industry, controlling the hearts and minds of the most important fans, apparently selling vast untold millions in product. I'm just not seeing it? Where? Who is making these piles of cash? Perhaps ebay ... on the after market sales of 1st ed modules. If we lumped that in, perhaps we could call OSR a significant factor in terms of percentage of RPG sales.

I'm not saying OSR is insignificant, far from it, clearly intellectually OSR has been very, very important. When you have the likes of Mike Mearls talking about OSR as well as other noted and/or influentail game designers you can't discount that. OSR has made its mark. If in no other way than by simply proving that people can just return to the classic systems that weren't broken and didn't need to be fixed. People can use the OGL to publish new materials, people can buy 1st ed stuff and simply convert it, etc. etc

I get this and applaud it. I'm just saying if there is a flaw in my logic about the size of the OSR customer base ... then show me the data? I can't find it. OSR in my opinion based on what I readily admit to be anecdotal data mixed with making assumptions based on some other sources (for example look at the amazon sales figures for the sales of WoTC vs. Paizo core books, etc.).

My point isn't to troll or be argumentative my point is that I think things are getting blown out of perspective from the OSR community. There is oddly ... how or why I don't understand ... alot of ego there. From the little I've seen in the blogosphere and OSR podcasts even before this 5th ed announcement I hear much chest pounding and really arrogant "we are all important" kinda rhetoric. This week with the 5th ed announcement that kinda thing seemed to really get blown out of proportion.

To be fair I haven't been watching the Paizo boards or equivalent pathfinder blogs, etc. so perhaps its just as bad there. At least in the case of pathfinder I could see some justification for smugness. Even then though it really would be unjustified. I think the failure of 4e came more from mismanagement and market forces than anything else. D&D has been a property somewhat adrift for a few years now. After the initial launch of D&D and say the first 18 months or so of release ... things just started sliding down hill. Was that because of OSR or Pathfinder? No. That was the fault of WoTC alone. So taking credit for slaying the dragon in a case where it basically swallowed its own tongue .. is a little unjustified. That was my main point.

The larger issue is ... it is out of this kind of environment that WoTC hopes to "re-unite" people and win the hearts and minds of its very fractured customer base? How the hell are they going to do that and if they somehow manage to pull it off, it is something that not just the RPG industry should make note of but its something that academics and business leaders outside of the industry should watch closely ... it would really be a comeback for the ages. This wouldn't be an outright first, for other similar examples one can look to: Harley Davidson, Apple, don't laugh ... seriously ... Martha Stewart, Ford, Best Buy, etc. Those are examples of businesses with fragmented, actually hostile customer bases ... which managed to navigate the mine field and find a way to come back from it. Do I predict a great comeback of D&D ... sadly ... probably not. But it is possible if the right people do the right things in unison and they finally get and stay focused on the customers.

15 comments:

John Gaszak said...

I would just like to see the Forgotten Realms returned to something like it was in 3rd edition. I was interested in trying 4th, but when I read what had been down with the Forgotten Realms, I felt like my time playing D&D had passed. I don't mind change (4th edition rules didn't sound that horrible and I have played every edition up to 3.5), but when a beloved setting was totally changed, I just lost interest in the game.

The Lord of Excess said...
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The Lord of Excess said...

I totally agree. Forgotten realms for me should be forever placed in what I felt was its high water mark in late 2nd edition. I feel the same way about Greyhawk. It is part nostalgia, but also for me it is very much about getting a piece of art or a story to a good stopping point. You have enough. Advance the story a little if you want, but world changing stuff, new races, full redesign ... why???? At that point its time to make a new setting. Decisions like that out of WoTC are the kind that inspire rants from me ... lol. I really believe that the forgotten realms stuff was pure and simple corporate greed. They were hoping to kill all birds with one stone. They'd get the fans of the old stuff to buy ... they'd attract new people who liked WoW (or whatever their aim was) ... etc. and that to me is what the new FR stuff I guess was supposed to be. Some odd catch all setting ... and at the end of the day it bares little resemblance to the former setting and hasn't inspired a new generation of fans. They pee'd in the pool and I don't know if they can ever fix it ... short of just saying "sorry we really screwed up we are stepping back five years." See this is my overall view of 5th edition. So much has been done since the beginning of 3rd ... trying to put the genies back in the bottle on all this stuff is going to be beyond challenging. So challenging I can't see how they can possibly hope to pull it off. But at this point I'm really trying to maintain a cautiously optimistic attitude. But I am with you whole heartedly on the FR stuff ... I dearly hope they figure out a way to put that genie back in the bottle ...

x said...

Yeah, that's not going to happen. There will be no unifying ever if WotC/Hasbro continue to hold the reins and doubtful anyone else could pull it off without risking a huge capital investment.

And the OSR / Indie scene is much bigger than you think. The problem is OSR material is not generally traded through the usual retail venues so instead of saying that people are gaming a different way they say people are leaving the hobby when in fact sales have been increasing ever since 2004 for TRPG. Check the remarks from vendors at GenCon this last year. Even SJG had a sales increase and the general over all mood was sales were up and publishers were doing quite well.

So, boycott is on, vote NO to D&D5e.

The genie is not going back in the bottle.

The Lord of Excess said...

Personally I don't identify the indie scene in with the OSR scene. Not at least from the perspective of the indie/small press RPG fans. To me OSR is a very separate deal. I think the only example of a true OSR-Indie title is Dungeonworld.

Certainly there are individuals who are interested in both ... but I find that most indie RPG fans have given up on D&D or just outright reject it and sort of look down on it as something they did in the past but wouldn't do again. Many of the hardcore indie fans I know actually dislike OSR stuff as much or more than the 4e crap. I don't feel that way as I have a nostalgia for old skool D&D but ... actually playing those games ... I don't know if I could even do it anymore. With my kids I'll have fun with it, but I don't think I could find a group in my area who would be willing to do it.

I won't argue though that if one does combine indie/small press RPGs with the OSR stuff certainly that is a sizable grouping. Dresden Files by itself has at times outsold Pathfinder from what I've read from the GAMMA and Gencon numbers, etc. I know indie RPGs have sold well and continue to do so.

I just think pure OSR, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, LotFP, Castles and Crusades, etc. are a microscopic piece of the the D&D pie. Pathfinder dwarfs them and that was my point and it was just in reaction to alot of the rhetoric out there about how OSR is responsible for the demise of 4e ... which is BS. The OGL and Pathfinder have far more to do with the demise of 4e IMO. The brick and mortar guys have been pushing that stuff, the 3.5 guys are willing to cross over into it, etc. 4e has fallen off a cliff after essentials failed to take off ... it was a last ditch effort.

I agree that most likely nothing will unify D&D again and that is why I think D&D on the whole is going to have a long, slow, painful death. OSR = old guys ... Pathfinder = grid based power gamers ... 4e = Magic the Gathering WoTC fanboys. From that what can anyone expect long term. All the normal folks are just moving off into the small press indie RPG stuff, into only playing video games, into more euro-board gaming, etc. I think D&D is terminal. Pockets will survive, people will continue playing versions of it probably indefinitely but the halcyon days of it being a big deal in gaming are soon to be well behind it. Fewer people want to actually get together to do face to face gaming ... I think tabletop gaming on the whole is actually on its way out ... video games are just getting too big and kids are all far more interested on average in video games than they are with long ruleset, hard to understand, non-instant gratification, tabletop games. Video games will win ... tabletop will die ... all why the nerds beat themselves up arguing about why X version is better than Y. Nothing any of us sane people can do about it ... but watch and try to get a place in the life boat :) Such is life I guess ... ahhh wonderful technology ...

The Lord of Excess said...
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The Lord of Excess said...

I know that just in my own gaming group we have all been far, far more interested in the indie RPG releases than D&D. Of the dozen or so people n the group there are a few D&D holdouts who keep hoping for a decent D&D game to re-fire but most people would rather play Apocalypse World. I'm more interested in FATE stuff and/or Burning Wheel.

That is another thing too ... even outside of the D&D version wars you have more and more people who are just completely leaving D&D entirely ... not playing any version of it. For me Burning Wheel or Legends of Anglerre are more interesting fantasy based RPG titles than any version of D&D. That is just me though. I know when my kids are old enough to play I plan on breaking out my old Red Box (not the 4e wannabe crap) and letting them experience the joys and pain of Thaco, negative armor class, etc. (hey if nothing else it is good for building their math skills!!). Like I said I think that will be the last D&D I likely ever play .. by then I'll be in my early to mid 40s and I'll probably just get back into golf and being a sports fan ... maybe some board gaming, historical miniatures ... and wave goodbye to all other tabletop gaming ... sadly.

I think many are in the same boat. I don't think 5th ed ... no matter how good it is will it be able to stem the tide. I do vow to give it a look though ... I won't pre-judge it just because I've come to hate D&D since 3rd edition ... if its good I'd consider one last try to make D&D work. But 5th ed being good seems pretty unlikely these days.

Zzarchov said...

I have no idea the size of either market (3.5 VS OSR, however you define those labels)

But one flaw in your logic is basing it off the number of people. That is irrelevant.

Its the number of dollars spent on gaming things. OSR people seem (anecdotally) to buy a helluva lot more, and as such punch above their numerical weight.

Whether or not that is enough to matter is another issue. I don't know the amount spent, just that $$ spent and not people playing are the motivators to business.

The Lord of Excess said...

Rather than respond here I just put it in an adendum to the original post. I do want to say though that I'm not attempting to be argumentative ... I'm really posing the question. How big is OSR ... can anyone provide data? Again I think OSR gets a free ride on the "indie/small press" RPG industry coat tails. I've also seen many comments regarding how OSR has single handedly been responsible for the demise of 4th edition. I think there are many people out there who are huge OSR fans and they only follow OSR blogs, podcasts, etc. and they are mostly consuming OSR products and they have a very skewed view of how big the OSR community is. For the record I don't play pathfinder, though I own the core rulebook, I don't play 4e anymore but I own maybe a dozen books for that, I own no OSR materials other than my pretty big collection of 1st ed D&D that I have from when I played it when it was the only version of the game available. I have some Basic D&D stuff and a gigantic amount of 2nd ed (the version I have played the most). I currently do not play any version of D&D though and haven't for a several months now.

So all of my comments are those of an outsider, someone sampling a potpourri of blogs, podcasts, posts on various sites, etc. I don't have any other perspective than that.

x said...

Brother, we have to bring you back to the light. :)

There is so much going on...

The thing is the majority of players in the world now play a 3.x derivative. Yes, Pathfinder is the big dog in all this there is no doubt...they are the #1 selling RPG at this point.

But the OGL is where most of the OSR / Indie scene exists. I'm not talking about Norwegian style or Story games. I mean RPGs...Fantasy, SciFi, Horror...all sorts of genre and genre mash ups.

The industry is dying and as I have said before thank god for that. It is becoming a community oriented game world again. The hobby business as opposed to the industry. More young people are coming back in to play older versions of games than at any other time in RPG history. Neo-Grognards and Grognardlings are their own choice of titles.

I track on a daily basis somewhere around 450 blogs a day. I have access to more than 2,000 on my lists and I have found more every time I look.

It is estimated that there are more than 10,000+ blogs covering the many aspects of TRPG and Wargaming going on at the moment.

Rather than type a lot on this round I would just ask you take a look at this post and comments.

http://theomnipotenteye.blogspot.com/2011/11/whoss-big-kid-on-block.html

I love it. This is the most fun I have had in gaming since my first AD&D1e group back in '83. :)

Scott said...

I'm probably the lone dissenter here. OSR games are boring to me. The single exception being Tunnels and Trolls. Old D&D and it's clones are dull and mechanically very weak. I am a game mechanics nerd and I like lots of fiddly bits, weird math, and combinations that help to exert influence over the odds that the dice provide. That is such a small slice in OD&D. I play that game one a year, in February, to commemorate the passing of Gygax. That is more than enough old-school for me. I look forward to seeing what they are going to do with 5e. D&D is Dead! Long Live D&D!

x said...

See, that is the strange thing about how the OSR is perceived.

I know that a group of people are desperately trying to make OSR = D&D but that's not how it is. I for one have started using the O.S.S. (Old School Style) to describe the players who liked a rules/mechanics lite game. Not just D&D.

There were plenty of heavy systems around. Even the first Rolemaster release was very heavy. I still have my original material for the system. Never played it. Most players then hated heavy games and no one played it. I grabbed a lot of ideas from the books but could never get into the system.

To me Microlite 20 was a lightning bolt that got me back to the table. Buried in thousands of pages of rules there was an elegant system that I would have never seen if not for M20.

I would say I should write a book about it...but I would have to correct myself and say that I am writing a book about it...and hopefully several more. It is the core of the system I have had in development for the past 2 years :)

The Lord of Excess said...

I agree that OSR is something of a misnomer, I like the movement of OSR. I would like to try an O.S.S game, I've been following OSR online for years now but to be honest I am no part of the movement, like I said I'm an outsider to it. I literally can not find anyone in my local area who wants to do anything like that. People either want to do new indie small press games like the Vincent Baker stuff or the Luke Crane stuff. Or they just want to do the 3.0-4e D&D.

I've played my fair share of heavy systems, I would lump 3.0-4e all in the "heavy/core" system category. For me if I'm going to go heavy there has to be a payoff. Honestly original Hackmaster I'd put in the heavy with a payoff category ... but good luck finding a group to play that!! It is a friggin hoot if you can manage to get people to play though. RIFTs, GURPS, Harnmaster, Hero System, etc. etc. etc. they were all the rage in the mid-late 90s. But to me those systems have unnecessary complexity and thus alot of extra work without a big payoff for the work. Hackmasters payoff was just pure hilarity, you'd start out with a joke and end up with a fun roleplaying game. RIFTs, Shadowrun, GURPs started out with a roleplaying game and ended up as jokes. Sure I had fun playing them but I do not remember the complexity in those games with anything but disdain. Those games are seriously just a big waste of time these days, unless you have some old group that has been playing them for years and has all sorts of house rules and workarounds in play.

These days where most people have low attention spans and less discretionary game time ... lite ... usually is better. Along those lines I am really sad that say the Dragon Age system doesn't have a generic alternative. I think a new updated, lite ruleset, with a large beastiary and a decent selection of classes would be perfect for me. But DA has few class options, a small beastiary and really not enough official support to get me to go in on it. DA was a decent video game and the demos/one shots of the RPG were fun ... but there just isn't enough there to get people to buy in on it in my group anyway. In my home game group we are presently doing Apocalypse World and we are going to be moving into Burning Wheel probably in March.

MIK said...

"That stuff was great fun when I was 12 back in the mid 80s but it isn't going to be fun for many adults these days. Its a great "he he" lets have some beers and relive 1984 for a night kinda experience, but it doesn't make for long standing, intellectually stimulating, deep RP kinda campaigns."

I love this quote, it sums up how I feel quite a bit.

Hmm, OSR? Please, give me a break, do people need need to make themselves feel that important by constantly putting down other games? Other editions? Boycott is on? Really?

You like OSR? Cool, play it. You like new fancy editions of DnD? Great, play them. Are you making a political/social statement by what roleplaying games you choose and which ones you shun? No.

Wait, wait, what about the groups out there that don't care what people are playing and in the end it's about rolling some dice with your buddies however the hell you want? With whatever the hell game you want? Yup, put me in that category.

Lord o' Excess, keep it coming chief.

The Dave said...

Very well said! As a person who has their fingers in quite a few RPG pies (4E, Microlite20, Pathfinder, BFRPG) what you said makes alot of sense. I love some of the aspects of OSR but I do think that many of those people have an inflated view of their self importance in Role Playing. Hasbro/WOTC killed the dragon, not anyone else.