What makes a game OSR?

[Malmuria]

I was talking about the game rules themselves and the vast bulk of OSR games being heavily derivitive of if not outright copies of at most 3 or 4 systems, which arguably are all already copies of each other to begin with.

Literally nothing you are talking about is what I was talking about.

There's a ton of OSR systems that are not retroclones.

 

[Yora]

There's a ton of OSR systems that are not retroclones.

But are they still OSR?

Why? Or why not?

i think in the end it comes down to what people play and make that they refer to as OSR.
I've never really seen anyone call their non-retroclone games OSR, and in most discussions I've seen about OSR, people only talk about D&D retroclones.

Is there any kind of interaction or collaboration between say D&D retroplayers and Traveller players? I've never seen any intermingling or ideas crossing over.

 

[Emberashh]

There's a ton of OSR systems that are not retroclones.

And theres a ton more than that that are, and are the ones most people point to when referencing what OSR is.

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Hot Take:
the marketing makes a game OSR.

The slightly spicier hot take:
OSR games tend to be structured around an imagined (mostly by designers who were not born yet or not playing ttrpgs at the time) play style supposed (by those same designers) to have been dominate in the “early days” (dates vary wildly) of the hobby. They are all focused on a single game (DnD) while ignoring all of the other early systems and inovations that share those dates (traveller, Runequest, etc).

That said I like some”OSR” games a lot and some of the folks in the “scene” are fantastic people but at the end of the day most of it is just DnD of some flavor or another.

 

[Malmuria]

But are they still OSR?

Why? Or why not?

i think in the end it comes down to what people play and make that they refer to as OSR.
I've never really seen anyone call their non-retroclone games OSR, and in most discussions I've seen about OSR, people only talk about D&D retroclones.

Is there any kind of interaction or collaboration between say D&D retroplayers and Traveller players? I've never seen any intermingling or ideas crossing over.

Popular non retroclone OSR systems would be
The Black Hack, Mork Borg, Into the Odd, Knave, Cairn, Shadowdark, 5 Torches Deep, Whitehack, Worlds Without Number, and others. These games are all intended to produce OSR gameplay while excising or distilling many of the rules of TSR era editions.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I was talking about the game rules themselves and the vast bulk of OSR games being heavily derivitive of if not outright copies of at most 3 or 4 systems, which arguably are all already copies of each other to begin with.

Your comment about being stale, or the things being added as being underbaked is still just your opinion. One that isn't shared, especially by fans of the older games and the OSR.

 

[Mannahnin]

Here is a post I made talking about OSR and its origins and evolution a bit in a thread... last week?

https://www.enworld.org/threads/why-is-osr-style-d-d-fun-for-you.698957/post-9082400

 

[Mannahnin]

Here is a link to the first in a series of five blog posts from two years ago digging deeply into the history and evolution of the OSR movement.

A Historical Look at the OSR — Part I

Old-school Renaissance / OSR theory and design.

osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hot Take:
the marketing makes a game OSR.

The slightly spicier hot take:
OSR games tend to be structured around an imagined (mostly by designers who were not born yet or not playing ttrpgs at the time) play style supposed (by those same designers) to have been dominate in the “early days” (dates vary wildly) of the hobby. They are all focused on a single game (DnD) while ignoring all of the other early systems and inovations that share those dates (traveller, Runequest, etc).

That said I like some”OSR” games a lot and some of the folks in the “scene” are fantastic people but at the end of the day most of it is just DnD of some flavor or another.

The OSR largely came out of enthusiasts on the now-defunct Google Plus. It wasn't a marketing thing.

 

[Mannahnin]

The OSR largely came out of enthusiasts on the now-defunct Google Plus. It wasn't a marketing thing.

Google Plus was a hotbed, but it didn't launch until 2011. The OSR was well underway several years before that, with Basic Fantasy RPG and OSRIC being launched in 2006, Labyrinth Lord in 2007. Cornerstone blogs like Delta's D&D Hotspot and Grognardia launched in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Some precursor elements go back farther, like Goodman Games, Necromancer Games, and Troll Lord Games starting around 2000 or so, and Dragonsfoot launching in 2000 as a website and forum devoted to 1st edition AD&D (though it later expanded a bit and got more tolerant of other editions).

I think MacD has a valid point that to some extent the term OSR has become a marketing term slapped onto a fair range of somewhat disparate products.