 |
| A Dyson Logos Classic |
What is the OSR? What is the NSR … or the POSR even? Where, assuming they exist, are they headed, and what will the future of “old school gaming” look like? Damned if I know…I just like to write up location based adventures and play games about dungeon crawling …
My OSR
Of course that’s not entirely true. I’ve been involved in the old school role playing game scene for 15 plus years, and have seen changes, personalities, trends, and innovations come and go. I could write a whole book on this nonsense, but here a brief and personal reminiscence should suffice.
For me it all started around 2010. Back then the scene didn’t really have a name - at least not on the blogs and forums I read. Five years later the identity of the “OSR” had come together a bit, but in those early days of blogging and playing online a collective sense of identity was still growing. For the purpose of looking backwards I will still use the term OSR, though it’s worth noting that there’s never really been an entirely clear and broadly adopted definition of the term … even its basic meaning … is it a “revival”, “renaissance”, or even “rules”... In 2009 through 2013 or so the term OSR was thrown around from time to time, but it wasn’t a label a lot of people used.
For me, it all started around 2009 when I found myself thinking about getting back into role playing games. I hadn’t played since the late 1990’s, but due to the economic downturn and related changes in my career, I suddenly had a lot of free time and not a lot of money. I also had a group of friends that were in similar circumstances. I started looking around online, and found the then new 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons and the legacies of 3.5E… Mostly I read play reports that felt like chemical formulas or technical documentation … and that wasn’t something that interested me much. To me spreadsheets are for making money, not evoking fantasy and wonder. Overly complex combat had been what drove me away from 2E AD&D and other RPGS back in the 1990’s, first toward systems like Mekton and Ars Magicka and then to Warhammer 40K and fantasy wargames.
In 2009 and 2010 the OSR consisted largely of blogs, the early days of the “Forum OSR” was still interacting with them, but to me it was blogs that drove engagement and acted as the primary platform for sharing ideas and enthusiasm. I found “Henchman Abuse” by Patrick Wetmore, along with “Sorcerer’s Skull”, and other key blogs of that time. They had an approach to games that I wanted to get involved with, and started me on my first OSR campaign … running Anomalous Subsurface Environment (“ASE”) for a bunch of other 30 something junior technocrats. We had fun, and I started my first blog “Dungeon of Signs” during this time. In 2011 and 2012 the scene was extremely welcoming and very hobbyist focused. While people were publishing adventures and a few retro clones, the attitude was generally a sort of shock that one could produce a decent looking book and maybe get beer money from sharing it with friends. Patrick Wetmore hired me to draw some art for ASE 2 and insisted on sending me a check (I promptly spent it all on good Scotch and a nice bottle of wine for my dad).
Somewhere in 2012 Google Plus (G+) started to take over the burgeoning OSR scene - bloggers found a place to talk to each other directly and began to do so. Online play followed shortly. This is one key aspect of the OSR that I don’t think gets enough attention. The OSR adapted older style rules to online play from an early date, and did so almost entirely distinct from the streaming/performance style Youtube RPG style. There’s nothing wrong with “actual play” shows and such, but back in 2012 the OSR was using social media and online meeting software for an entirely different, organic, and rather democratic style of play. Through G+ dozens of long term campaigns were active with a “drop in” approach to player involvement. My own HMS Apollyon campaign was typical of these - a setting widely at variance with traditional Dungeons & Dragons (or Gygaxian vernacular fantasy) that I ran using Moldvay Basic (“B/X”) and then the 1974 edition of the rules(“OD&D”). House rules were frequent, published and updated regularly on my blog. Many others created long term campaigns using the same technologies of online play. Some of these did cling close to TSR and Gygax’s vision of Dungeons & Dragons, but most were distinctive and creative - drawing on a wide range of fantasy influences, or at least the referee’s own idiosyncratic take on fantasy.
I often wish that the OSR was better known for these innovations - designing for online play, and utilizing simpler ruleset as a basis for customization without losing cross-compatibility … rather than for its maxims, grimdark aesthetics, or a focus on nostalgia.
Jump to the Present
I no longer consider my current work (or anyone else’s) to be “OSR”. Not because there’s anything wrong with the term, but because the OSR was essentially an arts movement of a particular time and place… one that has passed. The innovations and various concepts of OSR design persist, but it no longer has a center, instead consisting of a variety of smaller scenes and styles that I broadly lump under the term “Post OSR” or “POSR”. I consider my own focus within this wide space to be “procedural dungeon crawling” - games focused on the room by room exploration of fictional spaces with an emphasis on procedures backed with simple mechanics
My design goals are only one of many varieties of Post OSR design … and not a big one. There are entire Post OSR scenes focused around design principals, such as the “NSR”, as well as specific games and publishers, such as OSE’s community or Mothership’s. This tendency towards community built around an Idiosyncratic creator or game like Chris McDowell’s “Into the Odd/Bastionland” all have roots in the OSR of the 2010’s but have become their own things.
Because of this variety, and respecting the clear lineages these games and communities have going back to the OSR, I reject some recent efforts to both define the OSR as an ongoing concern and those too exclude games like Mythic Bastionland from the space of obviously OSR derived systems. The OSR in its heyday was never only about cross compatibility with older Dungeons & Dragons, though Moldvay Basic/Expert did become its go-to set of rules. Instead I propose viewing the present crop of games and scenes derived from OSR designs and OSR spaces as new approaches to indie RPG design and play, loosely linked by the Post-OSR term. No one gets to wear the rotting crown of “THE” OSR - but we’re all its horrible little children.
