The state of Post-OSR content

[PrinceofNothing]

If it's any comfort, I think we're actually about to go through a big revival of classic style play, but now attached to new rulesets and more strongly formalised that it was during Gygax. I don't think it's a new play culture such that I would call it "neo-classical" but it's an interesting third wave (after the original and then the early 2000s revival).

The future trend is going to be AD&D or near adherents, with B/X remaining constant as it always does, with a strong focus on the original material, with the rest of the OSR fracturing as a result of the current paradigm abandoning the very essence that kept the game alive during the D20 years. I don't think the current audience for the NuSR is in any way equipped or interested in that type of game, so it makes sense you are trying to covertly backpedal.

The BrOSR is half 3/10 tedious joke, half serious, unfortunately. If you're familiar with Jeffro Johnson, he's effectively the leader of a group who are mostly active on Twitter. A brief summary of what they see as the pillars of "correct" play are available here. I find some of their ideas interesting, but the way they express them much less interesting.

And yet, they would have zero traction if it was not for the push to 'decontextualize' DnD by lovely postmodernists and would-be intellectuals. The fact the fruits of NuSR labour are by and large shallow drivel focused on aesthetics does not seem to deter this process, but then again, it never does. You should congratulate yourself. This is what you wanted.

This idea of grand campaigns is the most interesting thing to come out in years of utterly dead discourse, far more then all this artpunk trash that has thankfully come to be recognized as inadequate and shallow. Proceduralism. Chortle and Snortjoy. Enduring systems are made by right-brained thinkers and they do not exist among your coven of midwit socialist witch-doctors. It is a task you are simply not equipped to handle.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

On Gus' post, I see it as a very verbose attempt for the OSR to save-face on the fact that they grossly underestimated the value of elements of AD&D that they scoffed at and abandoned for "rule lite" alternatives---only to find out that rules-lite (and Trad play) has a very limited self-life.

This is exactly right and correct and it cannot reasonably be disputed based on some sort of vague prior track record. Gus has been a retainer of Ben L, part of the original artpunk guys as vaguely defined by Patrick Stuart. Articles are mentioned here and there but what is telling is OUTPUT. What is produced. What is purchased. What is actually played. The fact that they are currently pretending to revise what I have been yelling for years, that Artpunk has no foundation and sucks because of it, and had to finally demonstrate via trial by Design Contest with Bryce the final arbiter is amusing and should come as no surprise.

The youngsters will now re-wind the clock, and make it clear that the reason they misunderstood and got OD&D/AD&D wrong was not THEIR fault (due to inexperience) but was, in fact, Gygax's (once again) for not explaining it well enough. All the dang self-satisfied grognards who blissfully ignored all the post-Gygax TSR/WotC blunders and the nu-OSR "innovations" to merrily continue playing AD&D, can now shut up about "understanding the spirit of the game" because NOW (DAMN IT!) we are finally going to codify these "classic-play procedures" and isolate all that stinkin' nerd culture once and for all...so that it can be bottled, dissected, and ultimately altered (once again) by this generation (the only one that matters, not all those dead ones!). This time the secret-sauce shall be canned (so that it may be properly disposed)!

Too cynical?

That's...too grim, the future is not so bleak. In the podcast I advocate that Grognards, and that includes you Squeen, have indeed failed to connect with the younger audiences and that your mission, should you choose to accept it, should be to go among the discords (there are many), and share what insights you have, and game online, which has never been easier. If not, then they are left to the Gus Ls, the Zak Ss and the other Paimon Pipers of the world. There are actually fantastic discords around that do not engage in the sort of poisonous cancellation and thought-control that is considered acceptable in this fallen age. Go out my friend. Go out and show them you are just a guy!

 

[Hemlock]

These are all issues that should be mitigated by DM description, player questions and DM answers. To the extent that uncertainty can be mitigated, that is; in the game, as in RL, the participants usually don't have perfect access to information.

The discussion between DM and players prior to the players making a decision is, of course, a procedure, and those who use it as a matter of course forget that it is not applied universally. So perhaps I should state my assumptions:

• DM's initial description invites questions from the players
• DM easily gives up information that trained adventurers are likely to know/notice
• Every situation includes at least some information from which players can draw an inference
• If players decide to do something that seems particularly unwise, DM should take a moment to ensure that the players actually understand the situation, which may include advising of likely risks of the chosen course - for example, if a course of action will take an unusually long period of time (triggering encounter checks or other timers), is unlikely to succeed, or has serious consequences for failure
• If DM fails to do these things, or does not communicate clearly, players will ask questions
• If players are unable to assess the risk, the DM will say so. Uncertainty as to the risk is an additional layer of uncertainty the players will have to take into account.

Also, skill systems should provide guidelines as to what DC should be set. A DM should advise, if the character can make an assessment, whether an action is "easy", "moderate", "hard", etc., and the players should know what that word means in terms of likely DCs.

Sure, DMs can improvise answers to all the questions, and can then try to convey those answers to the player, but the point is there's not a lot of value in a generic action *resolution* system in a vacuum. The hard part isn't rolling a die to inject uncertainty--it's the creative modeling of how a demonic legal process works. "Roll a d20 and compare it to target number invented by the DM" is actually just making the DM's job more complex by adding an extra constraint. E.g. what if the outcome shouldn't depend on your ability scores, but rather on who you know and how much money you have to hire a good demonic lawyer? Why should the DM be forced to choose an ability score and DC when your Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha are not relevant? Or what if the task should be easy for an expert and impossible for a novice?

It's nice to have the freedom to make the action resolution method fit the probability curve that makes sense for the procedure and not the other way around. If you know how the demon legal system should work, adding a die roll in the appropriate place is easy. Might be as simple as "we both roll d6 and if yours is higher you win the case." But what does "winning" entail? That's the hard part!

 

[PrinceofNothing]

The reason the exploits of these Intellectual Gaynors of the Damned should provoke such mirthful contempt is that, despite their aspirations of becoming the Intelligentsia of a movement that succeeded where they failed, and only started failing once they gained some small amount of traction , is that they are almost pathologically unwilling to defend any of their positions, and would be unable to do so if they had any desire to. A decade of intellectual sloth has rendered them into little more then word magicians that try to gain by trickery and force what should be won by rigeur, constant refinement and empiricism.

One need only look at the frequent hissy fits, petty feuds and interfactional struggles that take place within their sordid ranks. Lacking any concept of truth, any criticism is only interpreted as a bid for power and dealt with by any means open to the aggrieved. There is an obsession with deniability, meaning any such conflicts often take the case of whisper campaigns, blacklists and expurgated christmas card lists, rather then a quick open struggle, ending in a reconciliation and a re-ordered social picking order and an evaluation of perspectives. Look at the people that have perspectives that are most at odds with them. Are they engaged? Of course not. Their very existence is denied and their names are never mentioned. Gabor Lux? The K&K guys? Jeffro Johnson? These are only off-handedly villified and denied a platform. Look at what they are not pushing. The Utility Standard. Actual Play. The importance of a common frame of reference. Praxis over Theory. The primacy of the game as game over the role-playing format or focus for author creativity. Long campaigns and the Grand campaign. These are gaining ground while these people have produced absolutely nothing of value after an initial flurry of creativity.

Let us tally some of these 'accomplishments.'
Emmy Allen, bless xir soul, successfully created what none of these other would be artists could and made a Depthcrawl, a format that is modular and actually tackles the interesting ground of exploring a boundaryless unknown realm from a single point of egress. This format was so brilliant it was immediately adopted completely forgotten in favor of throwing purple paint on a yellow background, and for fucking shame. Allen produced nothing else that even came close, and is currently contemplating moving to 5e, along with useless grifter Evey Lockheart, author of the craptastic Ruined Palace of the Metegorgos, for which small mercy we raise a hearty 'Inshallah!'

Patrick Stuart, undeniably the best author among the lot, although Goblin Punch makes better dungeons, shits together the atmospherically brilliant Deep Carbon Obervatory, then proceeds to fuck up the Megadungeon format with Zak S, failing to produce any practices that are widely adopted despite the fact that by this time, Megadungeons were bascially identified (ref. Stonehell, Barrowmaze, Rappan Athuk, Dwimmermount). He produced an Underdark supplement that everyone agrees is spiffy but that no one fucking plays BECAUSE THE SYSTEM WAS THROWN TOGETHER AND NEVER USED, except for Skerples, who has to hack together a tome worth of sub-systems to make that work. Is he lauded? NO HE IS FUCKING RIPPED FROM STUART'S BLOG LIST AND NOW HAS TO DO THE SOCIAL EQUIVALENT OF CLEANING DIXIES IN PLUMBER HELL. Stuart follows this up with Silent Titans, a book everyone agrees looks killah-kickass but no one, least of all Stuart, bothered to fucking play.

In addition, the monstrously succesfull Mörk Börk game is launched, and translated by Patrick Stuart, prompting years of hilarity and poorly conceived Swedish impressions as torrents of absolutely unplayable bilge flood the market, necessitating Bryce hire a 2nd therapist and enabling an orgy of rampant grifting and shovelware the likes of which has not been seen since the OSR boom of the late 2000s, which I guess does mean it deserves the status of OSR.

In another addition, Daniel Sell makes the shittiest Artpunk game yet, which goes triple platinum mega-ennies and approximately one thousand positive reviews, never hampered by the necessity of actually having to play or for that matter even reading the damn things. It can boast of having a fanbase that is so toxic even I had to clutch my pearls when I found out about them, a rare delight. Troika's fandom is currently embroiled in a bitter war of assassins for the position of Most Loyal To The Current Thing with Monkey's Paw Games, authors of the even more craptastic unplayable shitbrew game CUMCONQUERED.

Doing a wicked-smooth DM slide, Adam Koebel and the other members of the Society for Involuntary Intercourse Via Automaton sneak into the mayor's office at night, find the dictionary, look under O for OSR, tippex out the dot at the end of the paragraph and add 'and also Dungeon World' and then sneak out giggling, showing up in the morning to receive their old school gaming card and lifetime membership in the OSR discord. He is currently embroiled in a cold war with another alleged sex pervert that was also into Artpunk and actually laid the entire intellectual blueprint for its foundation BUT WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SAY THAT. Read about his exploits here.

These geniuses have given us such modern innovations as the Five-room dungeon, the hexflower (which I think would be allright if it was used sparingly) and also DID YOU KNOW THE OSR IS DEAD LOL.

You would abandon the wretched mud pit you have made of your share of the hobby, and now, when Monkey's Paw Games and the Troika Maffia is starting to ogle your position with rabid eyes and fingering their knives, move back to polite company? I don't think so good sir. We do not need failed academics endlessly navelgazing behind mile high firewalls and sympathetic moderation for fear that they will be stricken down by the mocking laughter of the hobby at large or floored by a well placed inquiry. We need philosopher kings, builders, creators and men of action. We need contests, and play sessions every week, and to roll dice until the numerals are engraved in our bones. We need reviews, not composed of dry academic rambles, but reviews that embody the spirit of adventure that this hobby was built on. Take your solipsistic theories and burn them.

 

[squeen]

In the podcast I advocate that Grognards, and that includes you Squeen, have indeed failed to connect with the younger audiences...

I did teach my 3 (now adult) children. Seeds have been planted.

 

[squeen]

Perhaps the only important thing to understand for procedural-ism beyond the core-rules is the difference in probabilities curves of 3d6 and d20. One is a normal distribution, one is uniform. The rest is all up to you to fill the void and give it the Breath of Life.

More mechanization than that can be too much. Art, not algorithm. Don't fear the DM...just find a good one.

 

[Johann]

Hadn't heard of Troika before and just checked out their pitch.

"A complete role-playing game capable of handling anything from single sessions to decades long campaigns."

As it was published only a few years ago (2018?), I find that claim off-putting...

Addendum: Just starting to dig into Prince's review. Given Troika's FF pedigree my above criticism may have been premature, but Prince seems poised to tear it apart...

Addendum 2: Great review, as usual. Didn't read it before because your stuff is so damn long. Now that I had a reason to check it out it was great. I've got quite a bit of artpunk on my shelf, but here I'll clearly pass. Lots of creativity, but I'd have to do a ton of hard lifting. And that initiative system ... I wouldn't mind the randomness, but the required GM whim (or gentleman's conduct) would be a deal breaker for me personally.

 

[Hemlock]

Perhaps the only important thing to understand for procedural-ism beyond the core-rules is the difference in probabilities curves of 3d6 and d20. One is a normal distribution, one is uniform. The rest is all up to you to fill the void and give it the Breath of Life.

What I learned from GURPS, and one thing I love about the 3d6 bell curve (as well as BattleTech's 2d6 curve), is that a -2 or +2 modifier is always significant and interesting: if you're an expert, it may double your chances of failure; if you're a novice it may halve your chances of success. On a d20 a -2 or +2 is often insignificant, making it a poor choice for modeling things like the accuracy penalties for shooting at long range at a moving target, or trying to climb up a slippery wall.

Tangent: oh, another thing I forgot to mention about procedures a.k.a. game structures is that when game structures are sufficiently clear to the players in advance, the DM doesn't have to be in the loop, so players can (mentally or socially) engage with that aspect of the game even when they're away from the table, e.g. between sessions. The same way that players can plan combat tactics before a combat happens, they are empowered by known procedures to plan for other game aspects in advance, e.g. mercilessly bullying an demon until he breaks down in tears or scheming their way into a position of political power. "Play gravitates towards structure" and one reason for this is that it's just plain easier to think about things when you understand them well without having to play Mother May I with the DM.

Verisimilitude offers some of the same benefits as known rules: you may not know the rules per se for scaling the side of an ice tower, but if you know that your DM tries their best to make things realistic (as opposed to e.g. trying to make sure that characters are "suitably challenged" in every task they attempt), then you can just make your plan using your real-life knowledge of how you'd best approach an ice tower. If you're planning to assault a wizard in an icy tower next week, did you acquire or build pitons? Check. Bring ropes? Check. Specialized grappling crossbow and winch? Check, and check.

Therefore: having access to realistic probability curves like 3d6 is part of how you empower players to engage with the gameworld even when they're not at the table talking to the DM.

 

[Beoric]

Sure, DMs can improvise answers to all the questions, and can then try to convey those answers to the player, but the point is there's not a lot of value in a generic action *resolution* system in a vacuum.

Um, duh!

The hard part isn't rolling a die to inject uncertainty--it's the creative modeling of how a demonic legal process works. "Roll a d20 and compare it to target number invented by the DM" is actually just making the DM's job more complex by adding an extra constraint. E.g. what if the outcome shouldn't depend on your ability scores, but rather on who you know and how much money you have to hire a good demonic lawyer?

Well, yeah, all of that is considered before you roll - or even decide if a roll is necessary, or what roll will be chosen, or what the target number is. A good module will provide context, not by laying out the details and contingencies ad nauseum, but by inspiring the DM to ad lib it when it comes up.

To be clear, the procedure is to take into account all the surrounding circumstances, the approach taken by the character, and any relevant character abilities. Then you determine whether a roll is even necessary, or whether they auto succeed or auto fail. If you decide they have a chance of success in the circumstances, then you pick a relevant ability or skill, and set an appropriate target number in the circumstances, with appropriate modifiers in the circumstances, and then you have the player roll, and then you narrate the outcome.

Like, everybody's problem with skill systems is premised on the idea that you are required to run a skill system like you are a fucking idiot. Maybe you would get more out of it if you assumed that skill systems, like every other part of DMing, requires a bit of fucking effort on the DM's part.

And sure, some outcomes won't be contingent on ability scores, so what? In that case, if you want the outcome to be somewhat random, go old school and roll a random die against a random target number. Or use the existing ability/skill system and assume an average "ability" score for the nonexistent ability.

More mechanization than that can be too much. Art, not algorithm. Don't fear the DM...just find a good one.

Pretty much what I am saying.

Also, @PrinceofNothing, what's your beef with @Pseudoephedrine, he's just describing the cultures, he's not their fucking ambassador.

 

[Hemlock]

Like, everybody's problem with skill systems is premised on the idea that you are required to run a skill system like you are a ... idiot. Maybe you would get more out of it if you assumed that skill systems, like every other part of DMing, requires a bit of ... effort on the DM's part.

Speak for yourself. That's not the issue I have with skill checks. I use ability checks occasionally when I run 5E; but I don't treat them as a universal action-resolution mechanic like some 5E DMs apparently do (according to those DMs) because that just increases complexity.

 

[squeen]

Also, @PrinceofNothing, what's your beef with @Pseudoephedrine, he's just describing the cultures, he's not their fucking ambassador.

That threw me too. I'm guessing...

1. Prince is using "you" rhetorically, and doesn't mean Psuedo specifically.
2. Prince has secret knowledge that Psuedo really IS the Ambassador of the Artpunk (which is oddly similar to the way in which George Clinton is the Prime Minister of Parliament Funkadelic).

Now I'm wondering how I can get me a catchy OSR title. (Hey! A nice one!...not any the ones you all just thought of!)

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I don't really consider myself "artpunk" but I think the category as a whole has now inflated so large that it's incoherent, vs. earlier usages which picked out a consistent design trend incorporating Patrick Stuart, Luka Rejec, Mork Borg, and others. The use of the term seems to be moving into the territory of John Tarnowski's infamous "swine" which originally designated the Vampire LARPers who refused to associate with him in Alberta before growing to encompass basically anyone and everyone who did a thing Pundit didn't like in the past thirty years.

I think it would be more sensible to simply treat artpunk as one design trend amongst many that one can like or dislike (I have a mixed opinion) rather than trying assemble all of the things one dislikes as if it was a singular, coherent movement or alliance of some sort. This might be wise, as it would deflate the concept back to something one could assign consistent principles of design to and trace a lineage of influence through.

While I am not part of the third wave of classical revival despite being interested in proceduralism, I am excited to see where it goes. My own interest is in developing procedures to flesh out play using Mythras, and experimenting with Pathfinder 2e's procedural core to see how it works.

 

[The1True]

Also, @PrinceofNothing, what's your beef with @Pseudoephedrine, he's just describing the cultures, he's not their fucking ambassador.

Dude, seriously.

Also, @PrinceofNothing , what's your beef with Gus? It seems more than just ideological differences at this point. Can you point to an actual reason why the rest of us should hate this guy with your passionate fury?

This level of vitriol stresses me out. I thought we were all here to share a mutual enthusiasm for elf games...

 

[Beek Gwenders]

I think the #BroOSR will probably give AD&D an even worse rep than it already enjoys.

i have a feeling you might unfortunately be right. The only positive I can see at this stage (other than QB with his huge audience also summarising the same play style as the BroOSR), is that the key elements to understanding the AD&D texts (and indeed game play) - Time and the grand campaign - is now getting the attention it deserves.

 

[Beek Gwenders]

This idea of grand campaigns is the most interesting thing to come out in years of utterly dead discourse, far more then all this artpunk trash that has thankfully come to be recognized as inadequate and shallow. Proceduralism. Chortle and Snortjoy. Enduring systems are made by right-brained thinkers and they do not exist among your coven of midwit socialist witch-doctors. It is a task you are simply not equipped to handle.

I agree, the ideas of the grand campaign/time have been just sitting there all the time in the OD&D/AD&D texts all these years, maybe popping up occasionally in forums or obscure blogs (Nagora’s?), but never really getting anyone of significance (that I’m aware of at least) to pay much attention to them until the Alexandrian, the BroOSR and finally QB earlier this year started raising awareness to these ideas. The key to understanding AD&D and a lot of the weird rules only make sense when you make time an important element of the game.

Unfortunately, the BroOSR’s approach is likely to create as much negativity as good, judging from what I’ve seen so far. It’s hard to know if they’re dead serious about what they say or are actually trolling, or both.

 

[Hemlock]

The BrOSR is half 3/10 tedious joke, half serious, unfortunately. If you're familiar with Jeffro Johnson, he's effectively the leader of a group who are mostly active on Twitter. A brief summary of what they see as the pillars of "correct" play are available here. I find some of their ideas interesting, but the way they express them much less interesting.

Hmmm.

"1:1 time aka Jeffrogaxian timekeeping — The game world is tied to the real-world calendar. For each day that passes in the real world, a day passes in the game world. This may sound strange, but it turns out to be foundational to everything that the #BrOSR does."

I've done this sometimes during adventures but never thought about doing it between adventures before. Put it together with faction play in a West Marches-style group of DMs and I can see the appeal.

I agree that the tone of that post is offputting (especially the pictures and the podcast) but I also agree that the ideas are interesting.

 

[squeen]

"1:1 time aka Jeffrogaxian timekeeping — The game world is tied to the real-world calendar. For each day that passes in the real world, a day passes in the game world. This may sound strange, but it turns out to be foundational to everything that the #BrOSR does."

That totally doesn't work if taken literally. You are in the middle of a battle which get paused to the following weekend to play out...

The general notion has it's heart in the right place (but stated that way has its head up its arse)---you are totally going to have to manage that in a campaign. You just will.

 

[Hemlock]

That totally doesn't work if taken literally. You are in the middle of a battle which get paused to the following weekend to play out...

If taken literally, wouldn't you just not pause the battle for a week right in the middle? E.g. if you're rushed for time in real life, you might have to rush your battle tactics instead of pausing. My understanding is that having it affect the way you play the game is the point.

 

[squeen]

Seems gimmicky and unnecessary. A stunt.

Why is that better?

 

[Hemlock]

Seems gimmicky and unnecessary. A stunt.

Why is that better?

I assume by "it" you're asking about using real time to affect in-game events, which I've done before and actually am planning on doing tonight, as opposed to asking about the interesting idea which I've never done before: tying game time 1:1 to calendar time.

Furthermore, I'll pretend you are asking why it's better in certain scenarios, as opposed to challenging me to prove that it's better in every scenario all the time, which would be a straw man.

The main reason I like real-time clocks is for the effect it has on player behavior.

1.) If you end a 5E game session when players "take a long rest", i.e. bed down for the night to recover spells and hit points, you reduce the incentive for so-called Five Minute Work Days even without having to change the game rules. (Hey, this is relevant to the discussion on proceduralism!) It increases the chance that at least one player will say, "Hold on, I'm not done yet," and will press on, either splitting the party or dragging other PCs into greater danger with him. I don't typically see the Five Minute Work Day problem in practice so this isn't a big issue for me compared to:

2.) It helps ensure that we all get dramatic closure. Tonight I'm planning on running a mini-adventure one-shot to test out WotC's new Vecna stat block (I'm extremely skeptical about it), but I only have a couple of hours to do it. By setting a one-hour timer in full view of everybody, and secretly resolving that no matter what else happens, Vecna will arrive when the timer hits zero even if they're in the middle of another battle, I ensure that at least half of the time I have available for the game will be dedicated to the thing I meant to do (testing Vecna) instead of incidental details.