The state of Post-OSR content

[DangerousPuhson]

If a person has a consistent viewpoint expressed often, for others to read and consider, that is an agenda.

No, that's considered an opinion, albeit expressed often. An agenda is taking those opinions and molding them into some form of strategy in order to accomplish something - I'm not seeing any of that in the posts that say "actually early D&D was more like this...". So squeen's ramblings about agenda are more like some deranged Alex Jones-ian rambling about chemicals turning frogs gay and 10FP forum users trying to re-write the history of the game.

I like cheese. If I say "I like cheese" on a forum a couple of times, it's probably because I'm expressing a love for cheese, not because I'm trying to convert vegans, or shame the lactose intolerant, or drive up cheese sales across the nation. Sometimes an opinion is just an opinion.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Ooookaaay.....?

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I think this argument is at the crux of the "trad-first" taxonomy and mind-set. "trad" can only be traditional if there wasn't anything before it. Well...clearly there WAS something before it since it's...duh...Dragonlance. So it feels VERY revisionist to me to down-play and dismiss that earlier style as "not a culture, just a mish-mash of styles". The very idea that the OSR-style is a reclamation of that "non-culture" proves this altered-history to be a lie. Just because AD&D was trying to tighten up OD&D play for consistent convention play (which it successfully did) doesn't support this "trad" pipe-dream.

I would question whether "trad" can only be "traditional" if there wasn't anything before it since I don't think that's true of anything else we would call "traditional". I think it gets the title from its hegemonic distribution and use as an autonym by its adherents. In fact, its adherents only really start calling themselves "trad" to contrast their styles with those of the Forge and eventually, the storygames movement that grows out of the Forge. Prior to that they used even more pejorative titles like "real roleplayers" etc. which I specifically refused as a label.

I also think characterising my attitude towards that proto-culture as "dismiss[al]" is inaccurate. I generally have quite a positive attitude towards the proto-cultural phase of D&D. I see it as a very diverse and productive period full of conflict and exchange, without a single powerful set of norms that could be deployed to stifle dissent. We are discouraged from delving into politics here, but suffice to say that my characterisation of trad as "hegemonic" is influenced by how people of my political tendency understand and evaluate "hegemony" (not positively).

In general tho', when characterising these cultures of play and the history of the game, I strive to distance myself from my own affective investments and treat all sides fairly.

You mentioned me codifying all of this in a blog post. I am working on one, but it's mainly to understand OC RPG / neo-trad and how that emerged from taking games written for trad audiences like D&D 3.x, and combining it with the expectations of online freeform roleplaying to produce a new culture of play, that has rapidly risen, through the influence of streaming games and online media, to become the largest of them. Trad vs. neo-trad debates are surprisingly vicious, partially because both sides use the same terms in different ways and thus seem to fall into constant misunderstanding and accusations of bad faith.

Yeah, I tend to agree with Lich Van Winkle; the founding myth of the OSR is that is harkens back to a universal playstyle (EDIT: or universal culture) that never was. There is much useful to be gleaned from the OSR, but its foundational myths, like most foundational myths, are myths.

Yes, much like trad took one thing from Gygax and combined it with something else to create something new, I think the OSR took at least one other thing from Gygax (specifically challenge-oriented play) and combined it with something else (what exactly is another huge discussion for some other time) to create a new culture of play, and as part of the emergence of that new culture, its members engaged in a bit of myth-making around how they are the true inheritors of Gygax's legacy.

I think LVW's understanding of the details of that are weak at best, tho' I did enjoy some of his writing. I think he tends to confuse the romantic myth-making component for what is actually going on in the OSR far too often, and he frequently overlooks the more outre-works to emphasise the more conservative ones even when the avant-garde stuff is more.

For anyone interested in play style research (like actual research) in the 1974-1980 period, plenty of fanzines and other publications contain play reports and example scenarios. Some are freely available, and Alarums & Excursions pdfs are still for sale. I can help with other zines that aren’t freely available.

This is a little out of date (I will copy in my latest notes later today), but still a decent starting point for research:

RPG Chronology - Google Drive

drive.google.com

Any hypotheses regarding story probably ought to take T&T solos and early choose-your-own-adventure books into account.

Good work putting this together! Thanks for doing so. I tend to use the word "crystallise" rather than looking for the origin per se. I don't doubt the origins of trad are significantly earlier than 1983's publication of Ravenloft.

By "crystallise" in this context I mean that two conditions have come into effect:

1) A sufficient number of players are adherents to the norms of the culture of play that direct transmission of norms through personal connection / education is no longer necessary. A new entrant to the culture can pick up the norms through "osmosis", reading, and discussions without necessarily requiring close instruction by someone familiar with it.

2) A sufficient body of textual material exists exemplifying the norms of that culture to be available to people without personal connections to the producers, and that is clearly inspires imitations and other derivative works.

I don't claim this is a perfect definition or characterisation, it's more of a working sense of how to characterise the "floruit" of a given culture of play.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

For the record, despite disliking trad, I spent 20 years learning how to do it before shifting to primarily running games in the OSR style since around 2010. I continue to play in a number of groups where the baseline norms are trad, and some that are more stereotypically OSR.

 

[squeen]

Perhaps it is an issue of perception. When someone here references something Gygax said that I agree with, it might get a "like" in response. If I disagree with it, it is more likely to get a post in response.

Fair enough. However, claiming there wasn't a play-style pre-Hickman that was different post-Hickman is such a mental stretch for me---and flies in the face of conventional wisdom---it just seemed like you are trying to pour sand in Gygax's gas tank, i.e. downplay the legitimacy of his style of D&D. Defending that is very different than worshiping the ground he walked on---by a lot.

However, I think a subtlety of my point is being missed --- with Holmes Basic in Toys-R-Us for Christmas, the OD&D culture-club that had existed for 3-4 years (and that Holmes was presenting to the world) was irrevocably changed with the sudden swelling of the user-base. That's the backdrop Gygax wrote the AD&D in response to. He was (IMO) trying to steer all those crazed newbies back towards a more challenging and restrained D&D.

So on a personal level:

• I started with B1 Holmes ('77?) --- and was part of the crowd that "screwed it up".
• Fortunately, I hooked up with an older crowd, who had been playing "pre-Holmes" and were still in high-challenge mode. I loved it---and our group played, disconnected from the changes going on in the hobby for about 10 years. Coincidentally [or not], we also all enjoyed strategy games, Tolkien, and cerebral science-fiction. We were all males (initially), but not all white-males!

That style, that culture of high-challenge gaming that refuses to put the players in the driver's seat (for wish fulfillment) and is patient in delivering the long-game rewards, is precisely the D&D I wanted to pass on to my kids this past decade. I am reporting to you all: THAT STYLE STILL WORKS. Applying some constraints does not ruin the fun of D&D, it enhances it.

The evidence of my senses says that's the style Gygax was advocating in the 1e DMG---that it (sans tables, advise for handling corner-cases, and the odd OD&D rule tweak) is the core conceit of the book. You don't need all the fancy player-leaning frills to have both great fun AND a long-term sustainable campaign. My success-story applies to old-timers and today's youth. It's a legitimate choice---minimal, BtB OD&D and/or AD&D. They deliver the goods...and don't get boring. What's more, if you are having trouble make things "work" for you and/or your group...y'all might want to give it try it.

(But for Pete sake resist the urge to tweak the rules to make things easier/simpler---either for you or your players...because the odds are you will miss the whole point before the system works it's magic. When things get ambiguous, just stay focused on challenging the players--that's what keeps them engaged.)

I applaud @The Heretic for experimenting with dialing back the clock. It doesn't sound like it's in his comfort-zone at all---but at least for one session (so far) he had some fun. The trick, many sessions down the line, is turning the corner with what happens after his players leave the dungeon. WE HAVE NO GOOD PUBLISHED EXAMPLES. Can he keep up a high-challenge vibe in a less structured setting?
(...or will everyone be related to royalty and inherit castles? )

Yes, much like trad took one thing from Gygax and combined it with something else to create something new, I think the OSR took at least one other thing from Gygax (specifically challenge-oriented play) and combined it with something else (what exactly is another huge discussion for some other time) to create a new culture of play, and as part of the emergence of that new culture, its members engaged in a bit of myth-making around how they are the true inheritors of Gygax's legacy.

@The1True : Did I read Beoric and Psuedo correctly or what? Just because I'm paranoid...
@Pseudoephedrine : If it's truly some new synthesis, then I have to disavow myself from OSR-style, because I'm passing along exactly the play-style I knew from my youth---which you would argue is just an isolated micro-culture. And the harmonic resonance I keep getting from the 1e DMG (and even Finch's prose in Swords & Wizardry, and/or folks like EOTB and the K&KA crowd)---that must just be my imagination. Alternatively, perhaps the micro-culture was limited to a 100-mile radius of Lake Geneva.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I don't know where "isolated micro-culture" comes from as a characterisation - it's certainly not what I said, nor what I would claim. I have said it was a "proto-culture".

If you want to disavow the OSR as a result that it is not in fact a strict revival of the way people played in the late 970s, that's your decision. I personally tend to think that of the existing cultures of play, it is where people trying to reconstruct or revive that proto-culture will feel most at home and are likely to find the most productive exchanges with others. The interest in challenge-oriented gameplay means the revival of many older mechanics and procedures from B/X and AD&D, but also a great deal of productive development of new mechanics and procedures that aren't really straightforwardly derived from older examples but that constructively engage with similar concerns.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

If it's truly some new synthesis, then I have to disavow myself from OSR-style, because I'm passing along exactly the play-style I knew from my youth---whch you would argue is just an isolated micro-culture. That harmonic resonance I keep getting from the 1e DMG and folks like EOTB and the K&KA crowd---that must just be my imagination.

First, holy shit man, you think you have to excommunicate from the OSR simply because some people don't ascribe to identical definitions of what it means to you? Why do people like you look to outsiders to define how they should be enjoying their game? Just play the game you want to fucking play however you want to fucking play it; it's not rocket science. Damn.

Second, "harmonic resonance" is literally synonymous with "echo chamber", I hope you realize. Justifying opinions inside an echo chamber is a foolish thing to do even in the best of times, and you have a bad habit of using it as some sort of primary source information gathering. Absolutely anyone can start a blog or a forum account (I would know), so stop treating what you read on the internet as the word of God. These are just people, fallible as any.

 

[squeen]

I don't know where "isolated micro-culture" comes from as a characterisation - it's certainly not what I said, nor what I would claim. I have said it was a "proto-culture".

I'm not sure how "proto" becomes bonafide, but I read that as "not popular enough to qualify statistically".

The interest in challenge-oriented gameplay means the revival of many older mechanics and procedures from B/X and AD&D, but also a great deal of productive development of new mechanics and procedures that aren't really straightforwardly derived from older examples but that constructively engage with similar concerns.

Those new developments I would genuinely be interested in hearing about. Good ideas are good ideas.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I'm not sure how "proto" becomes bonafide, but I read that as "not popular enough to qualify statistically".

Ah. No, I think that proto-culture encompassed at least thousands, and probably tens of thousands of people. I think the critical lacks that keep it from being a culture of play was a lack of shared norms and a lack of shared understanding of what the "problems" of doing RPGs "right" were once the hobby passed beyond Gygax, Arneson, and their friends and turned into a community or subculture built on a shared activity rather than personal connection.

This is not a fault IMHO - it's just early enough in the hobby's development that people are arguing and exchanging ideas that are relatively novel and nothing is really fixed yet. That's why I think it's a very productive and exciting time: there's no real dogma to hew to. It reminds me of trying to pin down what "Christians" believed prior to the ecumenical councils and synods of the 4th century onwards.

Those new developments I would genuinely be interested in hearing about. Good ideas are good ideas.

Not to toot my own horn, but people seem to like my "encounter grid" idea. Some idea that are not mine that seem popular include:

Kevin Crawford's combination of feature tags with madlib adventure seeds to rapidly generate ideas for adventure hooks.
Chris Kutalik's pointcrawls
Trollsmyth's Shields Will Be Splintered
Brendan S.'s Overloaded Encounter Die and his levelless spellcasting system
Whoever invented slots-based encumbrance
Courtney Campbell's alchemy and downtime systems

Those are off the top of my head, of course, I'm sure we could find others with a cursory search.

 

[squeen]

OK. So it's not size it's...

Going out of order:

This is not a fault IMHO - it's just early enough in the hobby's development that people are arguing and exchanging ideas that are relatively novel and nothing is really fixed yet. That's why I think it's a very productive and exciting time: there's no real dogma to hew to. It reminds me of trying to pin down what "Christians" believed prior to the ecumenical councils and synods of the 4th century onwards.

This sounds like lack of dogma is the missing piece. Whereas "trad" did have dogma? From TSR and the Hickmans, or elsewhere? Where?

I would argue the proto-culture had dogma: the 3 AD&D books, but to that you say:

I think the critical lacks that keep it from being a culture of play was a lack of shared norms and a lack of shared understanding of what the "problems" of doing RPGs "right" were once the hobby passed beyond Gygax, Arneson, and their friends and turned into a community or subculture built on a shared activity rather than personal connection.

Because those books came from Gygax/Arneson? Are you "playing fair" here? Even the term "Monty Haul DM" indicates there was a cultural vernacular that is describing "bad play". I never met the TSR founders (although my brother now knowns Erie Gygax in Lake Geneva), but I knew that term from word-of-mouth.

Again, I'll make the point that before there was a huge explosion in Holmes-popularity (prior to which you read as just "G, A & friends"), it seems to me there was a solid culture (OD&D/war-gamers/challenge). I also believe I stumbled into it with my second group. I'm starting to suspect AD&D was not so much an attempt to discipline OD&D culture as some suggest, but to propagate it to all the rash (Monty Haul) new-comers. (...and make some $$ too, no doubt).


Also, thank you for the list (and sharing your encounter grid!)...but so far nothing on that list has really floated my boat or seemed to mesh with how I'm currently doing things. Still, glad people are exploring new ideas.

 

[The Heretic]

This sounds like lack of dogma is the missing piece. Whereas "trad" did have dogma? From TSR and the Hickmans, or elsewhere? Where?

That's easy. Lorraine Williams and the post-Gygaxian TSR marketing team. Also, see below.

This is not a fault IMHO - it's just early enough in the hobby's development that people are arguing and exchanging ideas that are relatively novel and nothing is really fixed yet. That's why I think it's a very productive and exciting time: there's no real dogma to hew to. It reminds me of trying to pin down what "Christians" believed prior to the ecumenical councils and synods of the 4th century onwards.

100%. I'm a music aficionado and the music genre go through the same thing. In the beginning there are few rules, you can do what you want, and the genre expands. Eventually it crystallizes into a hard and fast form. People have expectations. Trad was probably a combination of the push to eliminate Gary's legacy and the crystallization caused by the expectations of all the new gamers that came in from the novels/DL/etc/etc.

Here's an example from music: Post-punk. 1979 you had Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Public Image Limited, Gang of Four. Somewhat similarly sounding but also quite a bit different from each other. By the time the Post-punk revival came around, triggered by Interpol, certain aspects of the original sound were crystallized and merged with the new genre expectations created by Interpol's success.

</music nerd>

 

[The Heretic]

Oh yeah, as a continuation of my music nerd thoughts: Post-punk in the early 80's meant something different than what it meant by the 2000's. They are both distinct and both can separately be distinguished from other forms that came out of the movement (Goth rock, Goth), but if you asked any music nerd today about post-punk they'd be referring to both.

Perhaps OSR is the same way. Pre-trad gets rolled into that since there are so many similarities. They aren't exactly the same thing, and pre-trad is exciting because there is so much evolution going, but it's easier just to keep the two together in one category.

 

[squeen]

Good points. But again, I have trouble with Loraine Williams TSR being able to propagate dogma and culture, while Gygax's TSR (which included founding Dragon Magazine) are disqualified from doing the same.

Even your "Gary's legacy" comment implies to me there was a "thing" (which we label "proto" or "not crystallized") before it changed.

The "change" (i.e. to DL) also implies a transition period before it "crystallized" (and became old hat).

Doesn't OD&D->Holmes->AD&D->B/X reflect exactly the same process?

I think it's a muddy mess.

 

[The Heretic]

Good points. But again, I have trouble with Loraine Williams TSR being able to propagate dogma and culture, while Gygax's TSR (which included founding Dragon Magazine) are disqualified from doing the same.

Oh, I see now where there's a point of confusion. The two worked together, TSR and all the new fans who were getting intoxicated on the new post-Gygaxian D&D.

Doesn't OD&D->Holmes->AD&D->B/X reflect exactly the same process?

I think it's a muddy mess.

There's another component to the whole process. Time. And this is, again, where the comparison to post-punk is rather apt.

The events of pre-trad occurred over forty years ago. Pre-trad is sadly being forgotten. It's the same thing with post-punk and other genre of rock now. Rock is dead for the new generation. They only know it as old people music. Pop and trap music are where it's at now. Rock aficionados are in their own small group, with plenty of subgroups, but basically no one really discerns between rock, post-punk, or the post-punk revival anymore. From their perspective it's irrelevant.

And this is why I have a lot of empathy towards the emotion this is stirring within you. You don't want the memory of the original forms of D&D to fade away. But in some ways it's inevitable.

(granted, heavy metal would've probably been the better genre to use as the comparison. 70's metal is radically different from 80's metal which is radically different from modern metal. You ask a young person like DP about 'metal' and they probably think of something modern. Black Sabbath or Metallica or Poison (hahahah, sorry) don't come to mind. Hell, it was just about 15 years ago I saw an article in the newspaper calling Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin "proto-metal". WTF are you talking about!?!)[/QUOTE]

 

[squeen]

Well said (both). Nice to have you back Heretic.

 

[The Heretic]

I feel the need to be fair to the Hickmans. The railroad that was Dragonlance was annoying, and the innovations they brought to the railroad ended up being detrimental, but they did come up with some very imaginative stuff.

As mentioned elsewhere, Pharaoh was a blast. Sure it had a 'plot' of sorts, but so did GDQ, eh? There was a lot of freedom for the PCs. In fact the only thing railroad-y about it was the intro hook (which was practically the same thing as the intro to G1). They did a terrible job conveying how it was supposed to be plotted. I ran a friend through it in junior high---he had the next two modules in the series but not this one---and when he let out the big bad (the Efreeti Padashah that's supposed to drive the 'plot' of the series), I let him kill the big bad. He had a triumphant laugh over that. There was nothing in the module that told you that the PCs had to go here to this side dungeon to open this bottle to release the efreeti. I had no clue (the Desert of Desolation mega-module, on the other hand, turned this into a railroad; you were given the quest for the star gems up front and the very first one happened to be sealing the bottle that held the padishah. but I digress). The dungeon in the pyramid itself was well done. Even now if I DM for certain friends they'll have one of two reactions to being enveloped in mist. If it's outdoors, they'll ask "we're not ending up in castle amber again, are we?". If it's an indoor maze they start panicking and saying "Fucking-A, we're not in that goddamned pyramid again, are we?".

Ravenloft was fun too. As a dungeon the castle is lacking (few monsters, few traps, lots of empty rooms). But as a complex dungeon with lots of twists and turns and ways to get from here to there, it was great. And the insert with the map and the drawings of the castle...it's a masterpiece.

Even the Dragonlance modules had some cool stuff in them. DL 8 Dragons of War had this awesome "Tower of the High Clerist" to rival Castle Ravenloft. It also included a fun sort of sandbox/pseudo-hex crawl. The floating tomb on the cover of DL4 (the dungeon itself was kind of lame), the sandbox of DL6, the leading of the refugees in DL3, there was great stuff. Interesting situations. Unfortunately it was packaged in a railroad. Well, worse than a railroad. "We have this railroad for you and look! We even built the train for you! And at this point the train is going to split in half, and these cars have to go this way and these cars go that way!"

And let's not forget that the Forgotten Realms played just as big of a piece in the creation of the trad nightmare. As a campaign setting it had interesting ideas. Ed Greenwood can be an interesting world designer. But it gave them a setting to place novel after novel in perpetuam.

(and Ed Greenwood was HORRIBLE at writing dungeons)

 

[The Heretic]

There's a reason Gygax was perplexed when people wanted adventure modules for sale. The game as envisioned was like a big woven bolt of cloth. It's not easy to snippet that and really capture it; early mods were all qualified as "tourney adventures" for a reason.

It's funny because the designers of 3rd edition had the inverse of this problem. They thought the OGL was going to lead to a renaissance of adventure modules. Instead it lead to a glut of splat books. Then again, by this time dungeon design was a mess. It was in its Edgar Allen Poe days. It wouldn't be until OSR until Hemingway popped in to make sleek dungeons again. I can't think of any good modules from 3e, except for a handful of high quality Dungeon* modules.

* Even Bryce saw the appeal to Elfwhisper and Totentanz in issue #90 of Dungeon.

 

[Guy Fullerton]

It's funny because the designers of 3rd edition had the inverse of this problem. They thought the OGL was going to lead to a renaissance of adventure modules. Instead it lead to a glut of splat books.

This mis-characterizes things. I might find some contemporaneous links later.

It’s true WotC hoped the module load would be carried by other companies, but it was also clear WotC understood the breadth of product enabled by the SRD + OGL. They said as much on their OGL and/or SRD FAQs of the time.

The splat book possibility surprised no one; selling to everybody (instead of just DMs) was one of the reasons why WotC wanted less to do with modules.

The glut did surprise people, but wasn’t so much a consequence of splat books, as it was a consequence of that era’s distribution chain/model in conjunction, plus more companies trying to get a piece of that pie, plus low quality shovelware (causing the consumer base to become less eager), plus the 3.5 edition announcement (causing distribution, stores, and customers all to stop buying what was already lined up in the channel).

 

[squeen]

Wargaming and early D&D were born in a time when it was common to have a dominant hobby that took up a big chunk of your free rec time. Now that's atomized into keeping up with dozens of forms of entertainment, primarily the effort-free consumption of others' content. Gygax spent dozens of hours per week on his campaign, and flat-out says to expect that sort of time investment. By the time the 80s rolled around that culture was already dead for the cable TV generation.

Yeah EOTB. More resonance.

I vividly recall standing on the street corner in front of my house with a few friends, maybe all of 10-years old, literally saying---thank goodness D&D came along, we were SO bored.

Within a few years, computer games with dial-up modem Bulletin Boards, game consoles,...but before 1979, there was whole neighborhood hide-and-seek, playing catch, comic books, swing-sets, a handful of hard-to-come-by scifi/fantasy novels, and D&D.

Even now though, when there is a glut of media to consume, it's still the DIY culture of D&D that pulls me in. Looking forward, with the kids grown, I want something creative to occupy my free time (when I eventually get some!) and particularly something that connects me to people and breaks away from the Digital Drug. Honestly, most of what's streaming today is so darn shoddy and boring. I'd rather play soccer if my body ain't broke (and there's no bat plague).

Harking back to Heretic's music analogy, early D&D was the Velvet Underground---all jangley with rough edges. It's like Brian Eno said, maybe only 30,000 people bought their first album...but all of them started their own bands.

You looked at what Gygax's TSR was putting out from their little hobby-press and thought, "Hey! I can do something as good as that!".

Funny thing was, almost nobody really could. Something keeps getting lost in translation between your basement and the bookstore. You cut out a piece of that woven bolt of cloth and it's just a rag.

 

[The Heretic]

This mis-characterizes things. I might find some contemporaneous links later.

It’s true WotC hoped the module load would be carried by other companies, but it was also clear WotC understood the breadth of product enabled by the SRD + OGL. They said as much on their OGL and/or SRD FAQs of the time.

The splat book possibility surprised no one; selling to everybody (instead of just DMs) was one of the reasons why WotC wanted less to do with modules.

The glut did surprise people, but wasn’t so much a consequence of splat books, as it was a consequence of that era’s distribution chain/model in conjunction, plus more companies trying to get a piece of that pie, plus low quality shovelware (causing the consumer base to become less eager), plus the 3.5 edition announcement (causing distribution, stores, and customers all to stop buying what was already lined up in the channel).

Interesting, I'd like to see your links. I got my information from an article I read several years ago. I can't remember where I saw it or I'd dig it up. It might've been an interview with Monte Cook or one of the other 3e designers.

The glut was terrible. There were a few companies that did things well, like Green Ronin, but most of the other major companies like Mongoose and Fantasy Flight games released a lot of crap.

(I wonder if any of it would sell, I have few to get rid of)