The state of Post-OSR content

[squeen]

We've already had this discussion...

I'm an old man. I've already had EVERY conversation.

Back in my 1e days my personal experience was that thieves were so outclassed in combat they were no fun to play.

Not suppose to be in combat. See below.

And it is not an answer that you have only ever played with DMs who had the "proper" (i.e. corrective) style

That's my answer. AD&D Thief not broken. Condolences. Sucks to have sucked.

 

[Hemlock]

We've already had this discussion, and I think it ends up the the utility of a thief is entirely dependent on the predilections of the DM in relation to a whole bunch of factors including combat environment and rulings regarding getting into backstab position.

...snip...

EDIT: So you can address the problem with a particular DMing style, or with multiclassing, or with new mechanics like @Hemlock is suggesting. But you wouldn't need to do those things if there wasn't a problem in the first place. And it is not an answer that you have only ever played with DMs who had the "proper" (i.e. corrective) style; that just means you were always using a correction, and you just didn't know it.

Hmmm. I would think DM predilection is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making thieves appropriately fun. That is, as a DM, as much as I would like to let first-level thieves be awesome, I don't think I could do it under AD&D 1e rules where the success rates are so low. *Maybe* I could do it with 2e rules (more thief skill customization at level 1 to let you be mildly good at one or two skills, although sneaking still requires boosting two separate skills).

But I think I can satisfy my predilection better by actually changing the probability curve. Then I can offer thieves opportunities to do things they're actually *good* at instead of just mildly competent.

Probabilities matter, is what I'm saying.

We've always had a thief in the party...and they have always lasted the longest. There's also the bonus of neutrality and no impetuous to play hero (i.e. naked self-interest). It wasn't until recently (probably post the min/max 3e era) I'd heard any shade being thrown at thieves.

I never really saw thieves in play back in my munchkin teen years with AD&D, didn't see any use for them in Gold Box CRPGs in the 90s, and haven't been much attracted to them since reviving my interest in AD&D even though (being older) I am much better now at seeing theoretical uses now for stuff like Detect Noise and Pickpocketing. They just take so long to develop useful levels of skill.

Maybe it's just my ignorance though. I'd love to hear more about how you make use of low-level 1e or OD&D thief skills.

 

[Two orcs]

My first house rule running ACKS (which uses the B/X thief pretty much straight) was to count them as 4 levels higher for the purposes of thief skills. Interestingly one of the first ACKS expansions (Heroic Fantasy Handbook) did the same by jumping through the hoops of adding specialized thief gear and giving bonus for light encumbrance.

Something else I've seen in later ACKS and certain other people suggest on blogs is to give the thief limited infravision (30') to aid it's role as the dungeon scout, to make sneaking viable (by either having no light source or only using a tiny candle) and to create a sort of "dim zone lurker" role where it moves in the dim zone just ahead of the torchlight so it always has a shadow to hide in. This requires that elves, dwarves and others don't have better infravision since that again robs them of this role.

 

[Yora]

Thieves are one of the many cases where I wish the people who wrote down the rules had given some kind of explanation on how they would actually use them in practice. I don't care if it's "you can use and apply the rules any way you want to in your campaign", If they wrote it and printed it, they should at least have played with it before until they decided they had something that works for them. And I really would like to know what that was.

 

[Yora]

Something I just found:

The OSR Should Die

You are on my old URL! You will be redirected in 5 seconds...

chiquitafajita.blogspot.com

And a reply to it:

Have you tried ANT? A response to Marcia’s “OSR is Dead” post

I don’t usually indulge in talking about “the scene” or categories like OSR or Storygamers, but this article was so nicely and lucidly written that I couldn’t help worrying …

lurkerablog.wordpress.com

For people with nothing else to do for the weekend.

 

[Hemlock]

Something I just found:

The OSR Should Die

You are on my old URL! You will be redirected in 5 seconds...

chiquitafajita.blogspot.com

And a reply to it:

Have you tried ANT? A response to Marcia’s “OSR is Dead” post

I don’t usually indulge in talking about “the scene” or categories like OSR or Storygamers, but this article was so nicely and lucidly written that I couldn’t help worrying …

lurkerablog.wordpress.com

For people with nothing else to do for the weekend.

For what it's worth, recent WotC 5E publications already to have stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest of dissatisfaction, such that reading (okay, skimming) those histories of the OSR feels familiar. I don't know if that means 5E will just have its own preservation-oriented movement, or if some 5E-players will realize how much they prize the design elements WotC is shedding and will evolve towards classic/trad/OSR play. But it feels like a schism started in 2020 with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and is accelerating with Monsters of the Multiverse.

I'm speaking of things here like an increasing emphasis on character generation as a form of self-expression and an even-greater emphasis on designing NPCs to exist only for ~three rounds of combat, using a degree of designer fiat which emphasizes that these NPCs are not playing by remotely the same rules as PCs are.

Many players are fine with this. Many are increasingly not. It's hard to know which is the majority (probably silent) but there's a schism happening.

 

[squeen]

WotC really has a product called Monsters of the Multiverse? I mean, wow, jumping on the MCU cinematic band-wagon a bit hard aren't ya? No original concepts of terminology of your own? The Marvel comic-book multiverse has existed since the 70's...but after one or two movies...and BAM! it multi-verse this, meta-verse that sprayed all over pop culture like a cheap coat of paint. Pathetic!

 

[Beoric]

Hmmm. I would think DM predilection is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making thieves appropriately fun. That is, as a DM, as much as I would like to let first-level thieves be awesome, I don't think I could do it under AD&D 1e rules where the success rates are so low. *Maybe* I could do it with 2e rules (more thief skill customization at level 1 to let you be mildly good at one or two skills, although sneaking still requires boosting two separate skills).

When it comes to thief skills, one issue is that the 1e DMG does not expressly state, and that you could only know if you were taught the game by previous veterans, is that the majority of skill use was apparently intended to be narrative in nature; player describes how they intend to do what they are doing, DM rules on plausibility while taking into account character archetype (such as rangers being woodsy hunters). So thief trap detection, for example, is a safety net when narrative detection has failed to produce a result. Which makes those low probabilities easier to swallow.

However, many people, like me and everyone I played with, did not learn from mentors. We learned from reading the books, and with our 10-12 year old literal minds determined that if there was a rule for it, and the rule only applied to one class, then only that class could do it. So for your ranger to be able to climb trees to be stealthy, he needed to multiclass thief.

Thieves are one of the many cases where I wish the people who wrote down the rules had given some kind of explanation on how they would actually use them in practice. I don't care if it's "you can use and apply the rules any way you want to in your campaign", If they wrote it and printed it, they should at least have played with it before until they decided they had something that works for them. And I really would like to know what that was.

Exactly.

WotC really has a product called Monsters of the Multiverse? I mean, wow, jumping on the MCU cinematic band-wagon a bit hard aren't ya? No original concepts of terminology of your own? The Marvel comic-book multiverse has existed since the 70's...but after one or two movies...and BAM! it multi-verse this, meta-verse that sprayed all over pop culture like a cheap coat of paint. Pathetic!

I'm pretty sure I heard the term "multiverse" used in gaming long before I saw it in comics. I gather the word was first used in this context in 1963 by Moorcock, who is of course an Appendix N author.

 

[Yora]

WotC has been using it regularly since the start of 3rd edition.

 

[squeen]

I'm pretty sure I heard the term "multiverse" used in gaming long before I saw it in comics. I gather the word was first used in this context in 1963 by Moorcock, who is of course an Appendix N author.

No doubt! It was part-and-parcel of the popularization of the the implication of Quantum Physics that occurred in the 1950-1960's.

WotC has been using it regularly since the start of 3rd edition.

Sure, it was in the 1e PHB too IIRC...pinched from Moorcock, as Beoric said. Jim Starlin pinched it from Moorcock too, for his Adam Warlock (1975) and (original) Captain Marvel comic runs. Reading it back then, I thought it was cool too.

I'm just saying...it's trending ad nauseam right now.

Re: The Thief...I'll try to find time to jot down some thoughts about how I've seen it used in a few days. I think, as you allude, there's a deeper class-skill issue at play.

 

[Hemlock]

When it comes to thief skills, one issue is that the 1e DMG does not expressly state, and that you could only know if you were taught the game by previous veterans, is that the majority of skill use was apparently intended to be narrative in nature; player describes how they intend to do what they are doing, DM rules on plausibility while taking into account character archetype (such as rangers being woodsy hunters). So thief trap detection, for example, is a safety net when narrative detection has failed to produce a result. Which makes those low probabilities easier to swallow.

However, many people, like me and everyone I played with, did not learn from mentors. We learned from reading the books, and with our 10-12 year old literal minds determined that if there was a rule for it, and the rule only applied to one class, then only that class could do it. So for your ranger to be able to climb trees to be stealthy, he needed to multiclass thief.

I know about this narrative solving thing, but I don't think this helps the Thief. Rather the contrary! It makes Thieves with low skill percentages even more redundant. If the guy sneaking ahead and looking for traps could be *either* a Thief with 35% or whatever to Move Silently, or a well-armored Fighter who has been rendered Invisible by the extra Mage who replaced the Thief, why play the Thief?

When the Thief starts getting actually *good* at that safety net, it becomes more appealing, but by that time other characters have more magic workarounds as well.

Someone upthread mentioned just boosting Thief abilities by +4 levels and I think that *might* be enough to make me play a Thief, but refactoring the abilities to be more broadly useful and less easy to replicate with magic would do more. I really like the Savvy example of "I already bribed the guard to drop a key", but maybe that's just because it reminds me of Bill and Ted--although the Grey Mouser does this too, now that I think on it.

I'm just saying...it's trending ad nauseam right now.

Yeah, and WotC doesn't really tie it to any idea of parallel realities, alternate Prime Material planes, or anything like that. It feels like a buzzword, especially because it's 100% a retread of monsters they already published for 5E, with minor changes to damage types or converting spellcasting to spell-like abilities (which turns out to be controversial for NPC priests and wizards, but they did it anyway, along with giving them at-will blasting attacks that aren't spells).

 

[squeen]

...with minor changes to damage types or converting spellcasting to spell-like abilities (which turns out to be controversial for NPC priests and wizards, but they did it anyway, along with giving them at-will blasting attacks that aren't spells).

Not that I'm against NPCs playing by different rules than PCs...but, Oy!

Thanks for the insights.

 

[squeen]

Something I just found:

The OSR Should Die

You are on my old URL! You will be redirected in 5 seconds...

chiquitafajita.blogspot.com

And a reply to it:

Have you tried ANT? A response to Marcia’s “OSR is Dead” post

I don’t usually indulge in talking about “the scene” or categories like OSR or Storygamers, but this article was so nicely and lucidly written that I couldn’t help worrying …

lurkerablog.wordpress.com

For people with nothing else to do for the weekend.

Whew! All the sudden surge in activity from Yora and Hemlock has put me behind on reading here.

I made it through the first link, "The OSR Should Die", and here's my reaction:

On the plus side, I found his condensed history interesting, and learned some new things. His list of seminal post posts was fun too. What was very striking/shocking to me was the dates on some of these things. It's only been 6(?) years since 5e, and 4 since Zak-Gate. Shockingly recent, the events seem so much longer ago.

The downside was the heavy psycho-babble. I guess I don't place as much importance on notions and classification that famous people had (Marx included). We are all capable of coming up with wild theories that seem to connect events, but every mental-model of reality is Swiss cheese at some level. If you have an idea, just say it---I don't need its pedigree to judge whether it's rubbish or not. It made the post come off as too eager to be seen as an "authoritative landmark".

Holistically, my thoughts are two-fold:

1. There is a point in every serious DM's career when they are trying to make sense of all the disparate sources and get his or her game under control that requires some archeology of the hobby. We need to sort out a timeline and put all the elements into their respective places so our small minds can index them. Weirdly, 15-years after OSRIC, there is now a "history of the OSR" that is equally as tangled as all the official D&D editions that now needs to be organized too (for new comers), even though many movers and shakers of that time are still active.
2. While everyone must make their own private "History of the OSR" map --- each and every one is flawed (this one too)...but that's fine, eventually you "find your Jeep" and it just doesn't matter how/why others play the game if you have something that works well for you. And while innovative ideas are great, after a point you usually can see quickly whether a particular notion suits your style or clashes with it.

Lastly, the thing that's getting to be weird in an Orwellian sense is how the "classic playstyle" is getting discounted and erased from the history books. Just because it was vibrant and diverse doesn't make it equivalent to white-noise. It's a simple fact that people played differently back then...probably because people (specifically American culture) was different back then too. You can't really turn back the clock, but you can (like I did with my kids) do something similar that works today. I think new comers who hear all the "it used to be better" talk are frustrated because it's (temporally) out-of-reach, and want to dismiss it as a fictional "Golden Age". Rest assured, there was a whole lot of bad DMing and half-baked notions back then too---just read The Dragon!

Still, when it's all said and done, it's clear that the official sources (TSR/WotC) made a whole lot of wrong turns...mainly in pursuit of profit, but also sometime out of ignorance of just how the (O)D&D lightning-in-a-bottle actually worked. Folks with no real experience designing successful games and lacking a deep understanding of D&D were allowed to tinker-with and/or steer the ship---ultimately publishing game-variants that were largely untested for durability. Nevertheless, some folks bought them and established their own (new/different) play-style to varying degrees of success. After all, if a new demographic comes in, buys all the books and plays for a few months (on average)---isn't that a "win" for corporate D&D? Until they find a way to make D&D a monthly-subscription "service", there's not much incentive for rules that support lifetime (DIY) users.

Next time, a few thoughts of thieves.

 

[Yora]

The longer thoughts have had time to sort themselves out, the more I am thinking the whole thing is way simpler than all the people really still concerned with it are making it out to be.

As 3rd edition was taking its course, some people were saying "actually, I'd rather want to go back playing 1st edition again", and some of them tried reaching out saying "hey, take a look at these mechanics and procedures from 1st edition and B/X. These could be worth using again". And some people came and took a look and said "yeah, these are cool. We can use them in our work." Which they did. And then they went their merry way, doing other things with the good ideas they had learned.
The End.

That's of course by looking at the body of works. And why I am one of the people who think of the OSR as an event that went on for a time.
Now obviously, the event was people colaborating and sharing ideas, and these people formed communities. (That second link talks about Actor-Network Theory.) And it appears at times that some people see that community they are in or were in as being "the OSR".
I've been deeply into modifying and expanding B/X for seven years now, being fully hooked on the game style those rules are tailored to, and been regularly peeking over since Death Frost Doom became something of a sensation. But I've never been part of that community. I often linked post from various sites doing B/X related content on my own site, and had my articles linked by those as well a handful of times. But I didn't hang with the main crowd, so to speak. (I also never heard about that Google Plus thing as anything other than people bemoaning that it's gone.) The OSR event and the OSR community are not the same thing. And I think that's where some disagreement might come from about whether the OSR is dead or still serves a purpose.

If some people insist "We're still here and we're still doing the same thing we've always been doing", that's good for them. But when seeing the OSR as a body of works and the process of creating those work, all of that is irrelevant. Some guys hanging around late into the morning after the concert is not the concert.
The fat lady has stopped singing.

 

[squeen]

The OSR event and the OSR community are not the same thing. And I think that's where some disagreement might come from about whether the OSR is dead or still serves a purpose.

If some people insist "We're still here and we're still doing the same thing we've always been doing", that's good for them. But when seeing the OSR as a body of works and the process of creating those work, all of that is irrelevant. Some guys hanging around late into the morning after the concert is not the concert.
The fat lady has stopped singing.

I think the event/community divide is well said and accounts for the original "The OSR [community] is dead" series of declarations post G+ demise.

Another factor in OSR-isms is the changing face of technology and how people were/are collaborating. DF = forums, OSRv1 = blogs, OSRv2 = G+, OSRv3 = reddit, etc.

It also seems pretty clear folks "return" to D&D in their late 30's/40's and the edition du jour is the one they started with, which is why B/X has seen a recent boost. (Watch out, a 3e revival is next!)

Thanks for the link and an interesting read.

 

[Yora]

I think B/X has beaten out AD&D in the long term in regards to creative variant rules because it is much easier to hack.
For one thing, the rules are much simpler, more streamlined, and presented in a very straightforward way, which means you have much fewer balls to juggle in the air. The other thing is that it's much easier to strip of the D&D-Fantasy-Archetypes and reduce it to just the mechanics. When you want to make something new that is based on the D&D mechanics without being D&D style, B/X is just an obviously better choice than AD&D. Or even BECMI.
And I think that's what we've seen increasingly throughout the later years. It started with straight retroclones that all very much aimed to continue being D&D. And both AD&D and OD&D style games were popular. The rise of B/X appears to have happened at the same time as we've seen more experimental stuff becoming more common and popular. (Even though Lamentations of the Flame Princess goes back to 2009, pretty much at the start of OSR becoming a thing.)

 

[squeen]

I think B/X has beaten out AD&D in the long term ...

Perhaps. Or perhaps the long term ain't over yet.

Millennials have always had sheer numbers on their side. Time will tell.

I own the original B/X books that I bought new-in-stores, but the tone was off for me and I was never was tempted to use them.

Your point about rules-light systems being easier to riff off of is totally valid. I liked Swords & Wizardry/OD&D when I was first getting back into the swing of things too. B/X was an attempt at stepping back away from "advanced" toward the success TSR had with the OD&D re-write of Holmes Basic.

 

[squeen]

A brief note on how we used thieves in OD&D/AD&D (1e) successfully.

I understand what I'm about to outline may not jell with everyone's favorite play-style, and that's fine. With my original OD&D group (79-89) in which I was a player and with my (now adult) children as the DM (2012-2022), this is how we did it.

To put it in context, can you imagine a D&D variant in which every PC was a ordinary human, with d6 HD and an average chance to hit? No classes at all, no special abilities? Just roles to play in a party. It would be like the modern military.

Some would invest in armor and weapons, other would handle the heavy ordinance, and some would be lightly and mobile in order to scout the territory and report back. You'd also need a medic of course. These are your fighter, magic-users, thieves and clerics.

They are roles in a party that need to be played...again not really "classes".

In the non-combat stages, the scout/thieves are critical. The are willing to take the risk of moving out ALONE in front of the party, stealthily because they aren't in armor. Discover what's ahead and "report back" (which often doesn't happen for various reasons). Even if they are not powerhouses in combat, they get to do the lion's share of exploration in solo mode. Often the other party members are far away...and the other players listening (and making suggestions---we didn't care if that's "meta", they hear stuff, they say stuff---it's part of the fun).

It's a dangerous job, but it's also a fun one. Player who enjoy playing thieves tend to be natural puzzle solver, explorers, and strategists. They also get to be unabashedly neutral and driven by self-interest. That doesn't mean back-stabbing or betraying the party...but it can mean quickly pocketing treasure they stumble across before the party arrives. They also tend to get all the stealth-magic items.

OK. So their move-silent and hide-in-shadows percentages are bad at low-levels. Well, everyone is bad at the low levels! Take the poor magic user with 2hp and a single sleep spell---it can be a very passive role they play when things heat up. And I think that's the crux of the Thief-Haters' problem---these are sophisticated, adult players, intimately familiar with the rules and know their chances to a tee. You can pretend otherwise, but these are really the character build min/max'ers in disguise. Folks need to chill a bit and stop trying to optimize. It's ok to suck, a little. Take a page out of @Malrex's book and play a librarian.

The important things about the classic play-style (as I came to know it, and saw it work in two decade-long stretches that did not exhaust the player's interest) is that those class-mechanics are secondary to the general "I am a [human] being in this fantasy world, interacting with things". Combat happens, but (good) players generally try to avoid it unless it's a cake-walk.

In a non-combat heavy, interactive world in which class is not of ultimate importance...thieves are essential. Someone has to play that silent scout role for the party. Remember, in true OSR/classic-play there is no assurance of balanced encounters, you absolutely need to understand your enemies and avoid things out of your league.

Perhaps the thief-class's function was almost broken by WotC with their late-edition, player-catering rule mods. Since I've never played any other way, I never thought for a moment the class was broken (in OD&D/1e).

Two footnotes:
1) The most successful thieves have always been hobbits.
2) We also always let them use short bows.

Lastly, as EOTB reminds us, the thief abilities are to be preternaturally quiet or hidden. It goes above and beyond what a normal person could do, which goes hand-in-hand with the notion (for me) that very seldom is a roll required when a thief is acting as a scout. I would, for example, rule that a a hyper-alert thief sneaking ahead in a dungeon has almost no chance of being surprised.

All that said, the-party-rushing-in-to-rescue-the-theif is a common motif. As DM, I hand-waive away knowing he's in trouble, despite the meta-communication implication, but will leave other obstacles (like traps, secret-door detection, path bifurcations, etc.) in place.

Hope that explains my stance on (and love for) AD&D [1e] thieves.

 

[Hemlock]

They are roles in a party that need to be played...again not really "classes".

In the non-combat stages, the scout/thieves are critical. The are willing to take the risk of moving out ALONE in front of the party, stealthily because they aren't in armor. Discover what's ahead and "report back" (which often doesn't happen for various reasons). Even if they are not powerhouses in combat, they get to do the lion's share of exploration in solo mode. Often the other party members are far away...and the other players listening (and making suggestions---we didn't care if that's "meta", they hear stuff, they say stuff---it's part of the fun).

...

OK. So their move-silent and hide-in-shadows percentages are bad at low-levels. Well, everyone is bad at the low levels! Take the poor magic user with 2hp and a single sleep spell---it can be a very passive role they play when things heat up.

...In a non-combat heavy, interactive world in which class is not of ultimate importance...thieves are essential. Someone has to play that silent scout role for the party.

...Hope that explains my stance on (and love for) AD&D [1e] thieves.

I actually think it raises more questions than it answers. You do a good job of arguing for the vital importance of scouts, while simultaneously arguing that class is secondary! In a world where "class is not of ultimate importance", "thieves are essential!"

If class isn't of ultimate importance, why couldn't the scout role be played by a fighter or a wizard? Is this really just about a roleplaying niche, as if adrenaline junkie scouts can't be wizards? Or is playing a scout wizard or invisible scout fighter just something which no one ever felt like doing?

 

[Beoric]

OK. So their move-silent and hide-in-shadows percentages are bad at low-levels. Well, everyone is bad at the low levels!

...

Someone has to play that silent scout role for the party.

The interesting thing here is that you defaulted to the thief skills being necessary to be sneaky, which precludes the ranger from acting as a scout. Even later in the comment when you talk about thieves being preternaturally sneaky, you don't make the leap that this can be done by a ranger. And neither to most DMs, that is the problem; no ranger specific mechanic for sneakiness (other than the surprise mechanic), and no general mechanic for sneakiness (or attempts to do things not covered in the rules generally) equals no ability for the ranger to be a scout, in the mind of your average teenager (and a lot of adults).