DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
See, that sounds like a good system to me. We should get us some of that.
The state of Post-OSR content
- Thread starter Yora
- Start date
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
4e is pretty predictable. Basic +1 items with no bells and whistles are level 1, 360 gp (and won't even drop as treasure, the lowest you can get is level 2). All the other +X items follow a predictable scale, being five levels higher and 5x the price, so a basic +2 sword is 1,800 gp.
A +1 item with just a little bit more is level 2 and 520 gp, whereas a +1 item with a daily power is minimum level 3 and 680 gp. In each case, it follows the same progress: 5 levels higher and 5x the price. So a +2 item with a bit more is level 7 and 2,600 gp, and a +2 level 3 item with a daily power is starts at level 8 and 3,400 gp.
That's the bit everybody knows. What I eventually figured out is there is also a pattern for daily powers. A daily item on any magic item is equivalent to an encounter power of a particular level. So I could take a level 1 encounter attack power from any class, reflavour it (or not), and make it a daily attack power on a third level item. The pattern here is that at each stage where you get an encounter attack power, the item equivalent will be a half-tier higher. I expect that makes little sense, so here is an example. The next level where you get an encounter attack power is level 3, and the next half-tier of magic item would be level 8, so a level 8 item's daily power is equivalent to a level 3 encounter attack power. So items at levels 13, 18, 23 & 28 would have daily powers equivalent in power to class encounter attack powers of levels 7, 13, 17 & 23. Utility powers follow a similar pattern. There are some quirks, but that is the general pattern. Basically you get a daily use of an encounter power that is decent enough to see play.
Consumables are universally overpriced for what you get, ensuring they rarely see play even if they are a found item. A consumable of a certain level is priced at (I wouldn't say "worth") 1/25 the price of a permanent magic item of the same level (a bit more for the first couple of levels, which compounds the problem). Consumables generally have a power level a bit (or more than a bit) less than an at-will class power used by a character of the same level. That usually makes them worse than every other choice available to a player.
Which is a good example of how supply and demand works in the metagame economy. You can charge more for an item, or an entire category of items, than players are willing to spend.
A +1 item with just a little bit more is level 2 and 520 gp, whereas a +1 item with a daily power is minimum level 3 and 680 gp. In each case, it follows the same progress: 5 levels higher and 5x the price. So a +2 item with a bit more is level 7 and 2,600 gp, and a +2 level 3 item with a daily power is starts at level 8 and 3,400 gp.
That's the bit everybody knows. What I eventually figured out is there is also a pattern for daily powers. A daily item on any magic item is equivalent to an encounter power of a particular level. So I could take a level 1 encounter attack power from any class, reflavour it (or not), and make it a daily attack power on a third level item. The pattern here is that at each stage where you get an encounter attack power, the item equivalent will be a half-tier higher. I expect that makes little sense, so here is an example. The next level where you get an encounter attack power is level 3, and the next half-tier of magic item would be level 8, so a level 8 item's daily power is equivalent to a level 3 encounter attack power. So items at levels 13, 18, 23 & 28 would have daily powers equivalent in power to class encounter attack powers of levels 7, 13, 17 & 23. Utility powers follow a similar pattern. There are some quirks, but that is the general pattern. Basically you get a daily use of an encounter power that is decent enough to see play.
Consumables are universally overpriced for what you get, ensuring they rarely see play even if they are a found item. A consumable of a certain level is priced at (I wouldn't say "worth") 1/25 the price of a permanent magic item of the same level (a bit more for the first couple of levels, which compounds the problem). Consumables generally have a power level a bit (or more than a bit) less than an at-will class power used by a character of the same level. That usually makes them worse than every other choice available to a player.
Which is a good example of how supply and demand works in the metagame economy. You can charge more for an item, or an entire category of items, than players are willing to spend.
The1True
8, 8, I forget what is for
@robertsconley absolutely nailed it with this blog post. The panel discussion is alright as well. Thinking of the OSR as a galaxy with a gravitational centre is elegant and inclusive. I think we can officially close this thread?
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Wait, you mean you don't want to go on and on for another 80+ pages just to define a single nebulous term?
If the "OSR-sphere" has taught me anything, it's that "OSR" is an entirely worthless label - it means too many different things to too many different people, and yet somehow means nothing at the same time. The number of times Bryce has mentioned "this is 5e, not OSR as labelled" makes me think the label just causes more harm than benefit.
If the "OSR-sphere" has taught me anything, it's that "OSR" is an entirely worthless label - it means too many different things to too many different people, and yet somehow means nothing at the same time. The number of times Bryce has mentioned "this is 5e, not OSR as labelled" makes me think the label just causes more harm than benefit.
Ineffective Voulging
*eyeroll*
Well yeah a label that lies is a bad label
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
It's not just a lie - it's the fact that the label is so broad that it means nothing.
It's like a can labelled "food" - is it human food? Dog food? Good food? Bad food? Presumably you can eat it.... who the fuck knows.
"OSR" is the same way. Might as well change the term to "D&D-adjacent TTRPG" for all the good it does.
robertsconley
Should be playing D&D instead
Thanks for the shout-out for that post and the compliment.
The thing about my essay on the OSR and the panel discussion is that I didn't paint a boundary. Instead, I focused on the logistics that fuel the OSR's existence. The out-of-print editions comprising classic D&D are being made available as open content under an open license, along with the impact of digital distribution and crowdfunding.
My approach is one of the few that accounts for everything we see happening with the OSR. Along with explaining why clear boundaries don't exist. The result is creative chaos fueling a kaleidoscope of projects up and down the gravity well that surrounds out-of-print classic D&D.
Understand that the logistics are not useless and inconsequential. Instead, it offers a clear path for anybody new to understand how to take advantage of this OSR chaos for their own creative vision.
- Take a look at the classic edition.
- Knowing that much of their content is available under open licenses.
- Take a look at the research done into the development and evolution of the classic edition.
- From that extract, what interests you? Whether it is mechanics, organization, or use of the source material that inspired classic D&D, like Appendix N.
- Start developing your project and release it when it's done.
Afterward, your continued creative choice will determine whether your project remains part of the OSR. Continue to draw from the classic editions and their history, and then one's efforts will remain centered in orbit around those editions. Develop the project into its own thing, then it will drift away from the OSR and develop its own niche.
Rather than focus on trying to draw lines or put things into boxes, I try to explain why people behave the way they do. Along with what enables them to do the things we see them do. And in my opinion, this explains the creative chaos we see and the kaleidoscope of projects shared or published under the OSR label today. Nor do I fall into the trap of trying to figure out whether various projects are really "OSR" or not.
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Thing is, the "creative chaos" behavior you're seeing is just as validly explained by the following statement: there is no guiding authority to the OSR, nor governing body, nor collectively-recognized codified guidelines. It is a disjointed nebula of self-appointed "experts" swimming around in a common work pool of hobbyist authors, living as big fish in a small artificial pond. A diaspora of floundering bloggers and social media marketers shouting over one another. This results in chaos and uncertainty. There is the churn of chaotic progress in independent efforts, and then there is the churn of blinding mud in a struggle; this is the latter, though we believe it the former.
The OSR is a movement insomuch as Woodstock was a movement - by all appearances it has a legend of being a hippie mecca for change and a mass push towards enlightenment - in reality, it was a bunch of stoners dancing around in mud-poop mix who all went home and gave everyone a "you shoulda been there, man, we did something profound" air of smug superiority. In the general public, it became somehow mystified and idolized, despite being well-documented and emulated constantly. Guys trying to recapture the vibes of the original are clearly just milking the nostalgia for money. Now if someone advertises something as being "a modern Woodstock", you'll probably avoid it. Woodstock '99 wasn't quite the same, was it?
I get a lot of those same vibes from modern OSR guys - "You shoulda been in that wood-paneled basement, man, that demi-lich was crazy! Buy my new homebrew whitebox clone and you'll see it too!". Everyone is a gatekeeper funneling buyer-sheep towards homemade products to fill a hole they've been told exists. Grognards shout into the void "you're playing the games wrong!", alongside a startling number of guys who never touched D&D until the pandemic and suddenly know how it was all done "back in the day" with such faux-certainty. OSR is an empty marketing term now; the nerd version of sticking a pride flag onto a bag of Doritos every June. How many times has Bryce been burned by that?
Obligatory "not everyone". There are nice, well-intentioned helpful folk in the OSR-sphere. Grogs who have indeed been playing for 40+ years and just enjoying the influx of company and enthusiasm. Newbies who are just pumped to have a whole new world open before them. I have no qualms with them; those are good people whom I'd buy a beer anytime. But they get lost in the chaos of hucksters, plagiarists, gatekeepers, nay-sayers, social circle clingers, AI-churners, echo chambers and other unfortunates that make up the majority of the OSR.
I saw a funny discussion in the Comments section of a recent Bryce review. Paraphrasing, it went something like this:
"What level is this thing for?"
"It has no level, it's for Cairn. Cairn doesn't have levels"
"Then it's not OSR. Any game without levels isn't a real game, it's just a storygame"
This is the OSR today. Nobody can agree on anything, and the badge it wears has become meaningless. Where is the benefit to keeping this haze of half-knowns draped upon the markets, other than to obscure the shysters trying to peddle slop?
robertsconley
Should be playing D&D instead
What you're describing isn't an alternative explanation. It's a reaction to the conditions I'm talking about, and it is framed in negative terms.
You say there's no authority, no governing body, no codified guidelines. True, but that is not an insight; that is a description of what is going on. The more difficult question to answer is why the situation produces what we see. That's where logistics matter. Open licensing, out-of-print material becoming accessible, digital distribution, crowdfunding. Those are the factors that create the present situation. Remove those, and the "disjointed nebula" you're talking about doesn't exist.
Furthermore, you calling it a pool of hucksters, gatekeepers, and noise doesn't explain anything. It comes across as an emotional appeal that assigns blame to those involved in the OSR without explaining why so many people can participate at all. You're describing behavior. I'm explaining the conditions that enable that behavior.
In addition, the Woodstock comparison doesn't hold. Woodstock was a one-time event that was later made out to be bigger than it was. The OSR is an ongoing movement built on accessible source material and modern publishing tools. We are now 20 years in, and it is clear that nostalgia alone does not keep it going. It's the fact that somebody can read the old material, see how it works, and then make something of their own and put it out there.
Finally, you undercut your own point. You say the label is meaningless. Then you argue it's effective enough to funnel buyers and enable bad actors. It can't be both. If it had no meaning, it wouldn't function as a funnel.
One good observation you have is that the signal-to-noise ratio is uneven. You get disputes about what counts as OSR, like whether something without levels can be considered as OSR. Then you get people slapping the label on projects that don't meaningfully build on the classic editions of D&D, its themes, or their source material. That happens. However, that's a consequence of the openness I'm talking about, not a contradiction of it.
The difference between our views is straightforward. You're looking at what is being produced and judging those involved. I'm looking at what created the OSR and explaining why it exists.
Once that is understood, the "creative chaos" stops being mysterious or negative. It becomes an understandable result of an open, content-rich, low-barrier-to-production system built around a shared body of material known as classic D&D.
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Fascinating as it might be to study the conditions that caused something like the OSR to happen, these "logistics" are the means to the end, but not the end itself. What you call "logistics" were indeed the opportunities that the OSR had to grow and spread: open licenses, digital distribution, crowdfunding... but these concepts aren't exclusive to the OSR; they form in basically every single hobby out there. They spawn constantly within in a sea of voices and uncoordinated activity. These "logistics" are the natural progression of tools to spin off more product - tools that develop organically in any hobby in an online space that allows for aftermarket customization. They spawn from the churn. It spirals things into existence, like galaxies forming from clouds of hydrogen. Except in this case it's blogs and forums churning out modules and handbooks, or public opinion spinning out open licenses, and connectivity spinning out distribution. To say that "the OSR is a product of logistical opportunity" is like saying "the OSR is a product of people" or "the OSR is a product of information" - like yes, we know that, but everything is. This is not what the OSR *is* itself. The OSR is not Open Licenses and Kickstarters anymore than the Punk section of a music store is Signed Contracts and Recording Equipment. Those are the means, not the ends.
I speak of behavior because behavior is the churn, which is what I blame for the OSR concept being obfuscated. You're right, behavior is not the OSR, however I argue that logistics is also not the OSR. The OSR is products. It must be measured in products. At the end of the day, what matters is what goes on the shelf. The means of making the products (your "logistics") determines how much product we get to look at, but it does not define the products. The quality still largely remains independent of the means. When Bryce or anyone else sees something labelled "OSR compatible", they're not thinking "gee I hope this thing was developed using an archive of well-preserved back material and brought to production through online crowdfunding"; they're thinking "gee, I hope this shit means what it says on the tin and actually works at the table"... and that's because of the churn. The hucksters, the shouters, the ones co-opting the label to slap their trash into more DTRPG categories - all part of the churn. The label is meaningless, because the label has been compromised and lost any promise it may have once held. It is a label that is still of use to people (in the sense that the label "New & Improved" is used to sell things), but it is devoid of meaning. Without quality control, without oversight, without centralization or authority, the label has been abused to meaninglessness by the churn talking over one another 24/7, all to either sell more units or impress more strangers.
I speak of behavior because behavior is the churn, which is what I blame for the OSR concept being obfuscated. You're right, behavior is not the OSR, however I argue that logistics is also not the OSR. The OSR is products. It must be measured in products. At the end of the day, what matters is what goes on the shelf. The means of making the products (your "logistics") determines how much product we get to look at, but it does not define the products. The quality still largely remains independent of the means. When Bryce or anyone else sees something labelled "OSR compatible", they're not thinking "gee I hope this thing was developed using an archive of well-preserved back material and brought to production through online crowdfunding"; they're thinking "gee, I hope this shit means what it says on the tin and actually works at the table"... and that's because of the churn. The hucksters, the shouters, the ones co-opting the label to slap their trash into more DTRPG categories - all part of the churn. The label is meaningless, because the label has been compromised and lost any promise it may have once held. It is a label that is still of use to people (in the sense that the label "New & Improved" is used to sell things), but it is devoid of meaning. Without quality control, without oversight, without centralization or authority, the label has been abused to meaninglessness by the churn talking over one another 24/7, all to either sell more units or impress more strangers.
robertsconley
Should be playing D&D instead
You are prioritizing what the hobbyist consumer sees, and the crux of your argument rests on what products are out there. But products don’t make up movements or market niches. Products are a result, not the market itself. What makes an RPG market is the people involved: those who produce, those who promote, and those who play. My explanation accounts for how the people involved who label themselves as OSR behave and why they do what they do, whether it is playing, promoting, or producing. The logistics of the OSR are the framework in which those who label themselves as OSR operate.
You are critical because, to you, some products labeled as OSR don’t meet a clear criterion for what counts as OSR. But the fact remains that there is a large and growing body of products clearly centered on the classic D&D editions, their themes, and their sources of inspiration.
You decry that the OSR label doesn’t provide a clear boundary. But I contend there is a center, even if there are no hard boundaries. And the burden facing the hobbyist consumer today is no different from it was in 2008 when the OSR label first gained currency. There was never a time when OSR designers, promoters, and hobbyists inscribed a tight orbit around the central star that is the classic editions, their themes, or their source material.
From the beginning, there were distinct segments within the OSR: fans of gonzo play, close retroclone designers, weird horror creators, sandbox-focused authors like myself, and many others. From the earliest days, there was creative chaos that confused hobbyist consumers.
Yet despite that, the OSR has grown into a substantial niche within the hobby, on par with those surrounding d100 systems and Traveller based science fiction roleplaying, and as large or larger than the RPGs commonly grouped as Storygames.
None of that fits your thesis. Your explanation does not account for twenty years of growth, production, play, and what folks been doing with the classic editions.
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DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I think I've found the kernel of our differing opinion here. There are two "markets" of the OSR: the OSR as a market of commerce, and the OSR as a market of ideas. I think we might be playing fast and loose when speaking of "the market" in our exchanges, and now things are just knotted up. I intend no thesis here; my initial statement was "the OSR as a label (like the kind you'd slap onto a product) is vague and useless" - that's as simple as my message was/is trying to be. The rest has become semantic knotting.
robertsconley
Should be playing D&D instead
Thanks for taking the time to write that.
As a consumer label, OSR is weak and unreliable. However, it serves as an important social cement for those who produce, promote, or play works based on classic D&D. It also serves as a guidepost for people wanting to create projects involving the classic editions.
When it comes to commerical marketing, the crucial issue facing the OSR is the same one that affects multiple gaming niches: the march of technology lowering the barriers to participation. There are gaming categories with far more defined labels, and others like Eurogames whose labels are just as loose as OSR. Across all these niches, the primary challenge is how to differentiate what they offer, or in the case of promotion and play, what they do, from everything else going on.
The solution increasingly becomes reputation-based branding. For example, because of blogging, videos, forum posts, and my published work, I am known as the sandbox guy who writes hexcrawl-formatted settings, whether under my own name, Rob Conley, or my company, Bat in the Attic Games.
What sets the OSR apart from most other niches is that the different editions of classic D&D are not that far apart in terms of mechanics, themes, or source material. Combined with the wealth of open content, there is far less separation between projects and designers than exists in other vaguely defined categories like Eurogames. Instead, what we have is a sea of works, both commercial and non-commercial, blending into one another up and down the OSR gravity well until, at the outer reaches, projects generally spin off into their own thing.
That is why the OSR appears both cohesive and chaotic. There is a recognizable center rooted in the classic editions, their themes, and their inspirations, but there are no hard boundaries preventing drift.
This is THE problem facing anybody involved in the OSR, not the fact that it is a loosely defined label marginally useful at best for commercial promotion.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
That's ok @DangerousPuhson, when the US joins the EU there will be proper marketing categories. You will only be able to use the label "OSR" if your game can trace its lineage to the Wisconsin valley, otherwise you will have to call it "sparkling RPG".
The1True
8, 8, I forget what is for
Kraft ParmeSAN RPG!
Possibly, part of this perceived mislabeling issue would be less of a thing if people were more upfront (like in the first paragraph of their product description) as to why they've chosen to add the OSR tag to their product. A lot of creators do this already, saying their adventure is for this or that version of the classic game or one of its more recognizable clones. It gets muddy when scenarios are for niche homebrews, forcing you to research what version it's cloning and how far it deviates from the parent RAW. There's more and more 5e products that should probably say "In the Spirit of the OSR" or "OSR Adjacent" because the creator feals they have paid special attention to themes like meaningful decisions, combat as a fail-state, and terse writing.
Things get shakey if you consider popular RPG's of the '80's to be OSR as well. Labeling really becomes important if you're adventure is for GURPS or Rolebastard or WarhamsterFRPG or Tunnels & Trolls or the TMNT RPG (Palladium repreSENT!)
Possibly, part of this perceived mislabeling issue would be less of a thing if people were more upfront (like in the first paragraph of their product description) as to why they've chosen to add the OSR tag to their product. A lot of creators do this already, saying their adventure is for this or that version of the classic game or one of its more recognizable clones. It gets muddy when scenarios are for niche homebrews, forcing you to research what version it's cloning and how far it deviates from the parent RAW. There's more and more 5e products that should probably say "In the Spirit of the OSR" or "OSR Adjacent" because the creator feals they have paid special attention to themes like meaningful decisions, combat as a fail-state, and terse writing.
Things get shakey if you consider popular RPG's of the '80's to be OSR as well. Labeling really becomes important if you're adventure is for GURPS or Rolebastard or WarhamsterFRPG or Tunnels & Trolls or the TMNT RPG (Palladium repreSENT!)
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I'm still firmly in the camp that the OSR label (the kind you'd put on a product) has been perverted into uselessness; it is too big of an umbrella term, was never well defined to begin with, has been abused by people looking to sell stuff in the wrong category, and just generally leads to disappointment ("Hey, this isn't compatible with Mork-Borg!"; "Wait a minute, this is just a lazy 5e conversion!"; etc.). At present, the OSR logo is really only used to denote that, yes, this looks like a D&D product, but no, it isn't affiliated with mainstream D&D. I think it'd be best if it were retired and replaced with more system specificity instead.
The OSR as an event was a nifty little creative collaboration for a spell there, but I believe that it too has been diffused into irrelevance (we are in a thread called "Post-OSR content" after all). Creators nowadays work in isolation or in cloistered groups, only tied together by the fact that they share a marketplace and their basic frameworks derive from (supposedly) compatible rulesets. Ideas are all impermanent and ephemeral or locked into echo chambers and sheltered from refinement. I'm not certain of the merits of trying to keep the corpse of the OSR zombified, beyond becoming a hobby in itself. It was seemingly lightning in a bottle.
The OSR as an event was a nifty little creative collaboration for a spell there, but I believe that it too has been diffused into irrelevance (we are in a thread called "Post-OSR content" after all). Creators nowadays work in isolation or in cloistered groups, only tied together by the fact that they share a marketplace and their basic frameworks derive from (supposedly) compatible rulesets. Ideas are all impermanent and ephemeral or locked into echo chambers and sheltered from refinement. I'm not certain of the merits of trying to keep the corpse of the OSR zombified, beyond becoming a hobby in itself. It was seemingly lightning in a bottle.
robertsconley
Should be playing D&D instead
The issues you describe exist, but they are overstated and don’t reflect the current reality of publishing, playing, or promoting within the OSR.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Well, maybe for one of these, as I was a participant.
Here are three panels discussing the current state of the OSR:
The common themes running throughout them are:
- creators collaborating,
- uplifting each other’s projects,
- shared conventions,
- overlapping communities,
- common inspirations,
- third-party publishing,
- sharing mechanics and subsystems,
- cross-promotion,
- and discussing shared principles for layout, systems, and play style.
All of that is emblematic of a vibrant, decentralized corner of the hobby, not a dying niche losing its sense of itself.
What you describe as fragmentation looks more to me like the natural result of twenty years of growth, the maturing of specific creative visions, and lowered barriers to participation.
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I think the issue here is that we both speak from insular and opposite positions.
I speak as a consumer who purchases OSR products (and not very often, at that). My touchpoint into the OSR are reviewers like Bryce's blog (where he routinely laments the state of pitiful OSR offerings these days), Youtubers who constantly try to proselytize their homebrew system, or subreddits filled with other consumers sharing their experiences using said products. On this side of the fence, we care about what is on the shelf; the machinations behind production is entirely irrelevant to a consumer's experiences with the OSR. The consumer side does not utilize any of the "common themes" you've identified (sure they'll benefit from them in the quality and availability of their purchases, but consumers aren't the ones doing third-party publishing or cross-promotion; the creators are).
You speak as a creator/producer who collaborates within a small circle of the OSR (I say small circle subjectively, because if we use "OSR" to mean "TTRPG hobbyist module writers", then at most you're really only working with like 2% of all the writers doing OSR stuff). Your touchpoint into the OSR is behind the scenes, collaborating on upcoming releases and doing panels with other creators. You care about the "common theme" stuff before a product hits a shelf, because that is your domain - things like crowdfunding, production tools, collaborative spaces, etc.
My point is that you see the OSR one way (production), and I see it in another way (consumption). As a producer, you find value in the OSR as a handy channel for collaboration and a push to derive more production tools. As a consumer, I find that "OSR" is an empty label, convoluted by hazy definitions and insincere co-opting. Our viewpoints have to do with where we stand in relation to the OSR - you are inside, I am outside. I am certain most people working inside the OSR find value in the OSR (otherwise they'd be elsewhere); however, most of the world is outside the OSR, and as an outsider among them, allow me to share my perspective that the OSR from a consumer/outsider perspective is at best confusing, and at worst misleading.
I speak as a consumer who purchases OSR products (and not very often, at that). My touchpoint into the OSR are reviewers like Bryce's blog (where he routinely laments the state of pitiful OSR offerings these days), Youtubers who constantly try to proselytize their homebrew system, or subreddits filled with other consumers sharing their experiences using said products. On this side of the fence, we care about what is on the shelf; the machinations behind production is entirely irrelevant to a consumer's experiences with the OSR. The consumer side does not utilize any of the "common themes" you've identified (sure they'll benefit from them in the quality and availability of their purchases, but consumers aren't the ones doing third-party publishing or cross-promotion; the creators are).
You speak as a creator/producer who collaborates within a small circle of the OSR (I say small circle subjectively, because if we use "OSR" to mean "TTRPG hobbyist module writers", then at most you're really only working with like 2% of all the writers doing OSR stuff). Your touchpoint into the OSR is behind the scenes, collaborating on upcoming releases and doing panels with other creators. You care about the "common theme" stuff before a product hits a shelf, because that is your domain - things like crowdfunding, production tools, collaborative spaces, etc.
My point is that you see the OSR one way (production), and I see it in another way (consumption). As a producer, you find value in the OSR as a handy channel for collaboration and a push to derive more production tools. As a consumer, I find that "OSR" is an empty label, convoluted by hazy definitions and insincere co-opting. Our viewpoints have to do with where we stand in relation to the OSR - you are inside, I am outside. I am certain most people working inside the OSR find value in the OSR (otherwise they'd be elsewhere); however, most of the world is outside the OSR, and as an outsider among them, allow me to share my perspective that the OSR from a consumer/outsider perspective is at best confusing, and at worst misleading.
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
In a nutshell, you (Robert) think this is the OSR:
And I think this is the OSR:
And we are both right. But when we talk of "the OSR", we are clearly talking about different things.
And I think this is the OSR:
And we are both right. But when we talk of "the OSR", we are clearly talking about different things.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Ok, but Bryce has a unique inability to recognize from the publishing blurb and the preview that the product is not, in fact, OSR. @The1True has cracked the code, which is to say,
I actually think it's pretty easy to spot when a product is really based on early edition D&D or a retroclone.