The state of Post-OSR content

[The1True]

Your hands are not clean in this respect. You defend and laugh along with your friends, as it should be. So best we drop the issue you are dancing around---which is my ultimate goal. I will not respond on this matter any further.

Yeah sorry man. A lot of your text seemed really aggrieved to me. I guess I'm misinterpreting it. I think you know I don't bear anyone any ill will. This forum is my daily micro-vacation and I'm here to keep it light.

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Just to be clear, I don't think one culture is more railroad-y than another, I just think that the failure states that each one characterises as "railroading" are distinct. While there can be common techniques of railroading between the two, I think the states each is concerned about producing via those techniques are distinct.

There is something I am not getting here. If the aspirations, and even the actions, of the characters can have no impact on the direction of play, how can the game possibly be revolving around the characters? Is playing the character's role within a defined scenario more important than that character actually having an impact on the game world?

Sort of? I'd take a step back and say that in OC RPG the aspirations and actions of the characters are important, but the most important aspirations and actions are expressive of the character more than anything else. Different styles within that culture will prioritise different kinds of expression, and specific sets of aspirations and actions, ranging from people who just want to do dungeon delves so they can show off how cool it is when their 15th level Bladesinger cuts down a bunch of giants in a single turn to people who want to play games where their characters run an inn and chitchat with their NPC friends without ever levelling, and all points in between. Changing the game world is great if relevant to that (and it often can be), but not an end in itself. That is, given a choice between having a "cool moment" where their character shines and is the star of the story, and being able to impersonally tot up some numbers (even very large numbers) of soldiers on a domain tracking sheet and at the end discover that they now have the largest army in the kingdom, most OC RPG people will pick the former.

One of the interesting elements of OC RPG culture I've discovered is that many members find it very normal to take the same character and play through a module several times with different DMs until they "get it right", with each run through taken as a chance to experiment with expressing the character in slightly different ways and conditions (other PCs, new DM, etc.) until the perfect mix and experience is obtained.

 

[squeen]

One of the interesting elements of OC RPG culture I've discovered is that many members find it very normal to take the same character and play through a module several times with different DMs until they "get it right", with each run through taken as a chance to experiment with expressing the character in slightly different ways and conditions (other PCs, new DM, etc.) until the perfect mix and experience is obtained.

Just wait until OcculusRift and VR is in full-gear with real-time ray tracing, a few AI NPCs---then everyone will be a superstar in their own head-space 24/7.

I could go on, but it's already beyond creepy. (Oh the humanity!)

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I try to look on the positive side. There are several games that have incorporated affordances for neo-trad play that are very interesting and even better than they would be without them. Dungeonworld, Beyond the Wall, and Unknown Armies 3rd edition all have structured character creation, structured group concept development, and structured collaborative world-building procedures that are very interesting and add a lot to the fun those games produce.

 

[squeen]

You have the right attitude. I'm just being grumpy.

 

[Beoric]

That is, given a choice between having a "cool moment" where their character shines and is the star of the story, and being able to impersonally tot up some numbers (even very large numbers) of soldiers on a domain tracking sheet and at the end discover that they now have the largest army in the kingdom, most OC RPG people will pick the former.

Ok, but do they care if they are the star of a story someone else wrote, as opposed to the star of a story that changed because of their characters' actions? (That's what I mean by impact on the world. Mostly.)

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Ok, but do they care if they are the star of a story someone else wrote, as opposed to the star of a story that changed because of their characters' actions? (That's what I mean by impact on the world. Mostly.)

I think they would prefer the latter when stated this abstractly, but this kind of high level stuff leaves out a lot of the specific details that they would use to evaluate the question and make a response, and I would not be surprised to find either answer provided as one got more detailed about what those options entailed.

 

[Guy Fullerton]

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

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

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

The ogf-d20-l archives capture back to before 3e released, where various publishers were asking questions and brainstorming on possibilities:

ogf-d20-l

www.mail-archive.com

Before 3e got released, somebody was already brainstorming about turning the SRD into a supers game:

[ogf-d20-l] Question about experience costs and Trademark liscence...

www.mail-archive.com

And, although this was almost 1.5 months after the PHB released, somebody mentions most of the elements of a splatbook here:

[ogf-d20-l] Is the OGL license required for a D20 licensed product?

www.mail-archive.com

The earliest archive capture of the FAQ for that mailing list (of which Ryan Dancey was the moderator/owner) talks about some of the possibilities in section C.08:

THE UNOFFICIAL OGF-D20 LISTSERVE FAQ

Ryan Dancey's early 2000 (March, I think) interview touches on a variety of things that he says people can do with the OGL + SRD (see "Let's talk specific examples..."):
http://web.archive.org/web/20000408044949/http://www.rpgplanet.com/dnd3e/interview-rsd-0300.htm

I had thought there was a late 2000 version of the SRD FAQ on the WotC site, but I can only find a 2004 version. I could have sworn there was a ~2000 version with similar content, but there may not have been. Anyway if you give me the benefit of the doubt, note how 2004 version welcomes people to re-publish and attempt to sell the entirety of the SRD if they want:

System Reference Document:Frequently Asked Questions

System Reference Document: Frequently Asked Questions

web.archive.org

 

[Beoric]

I think they would prefer the latter when stated this abstractly, but this kind of high level stuff leaves out a lot of the specific details that they would use to evaluate the question and make a response, and I would not be surprised to find either answer provided as one got more detailed about what those options entailed.

Okay, so if I let players play what they want, go where they want, and do what they want, and provide opportunities for them to fulfil their goals and aspirations, what am I? Because I'm all about the agency, and letting the chips fall where they may, but I've also built campaigns around player's character concepts when there was enough meat there to do so.

I guess what I am saying is the definition seems so broad that it looks like you could be OSR and OC PR simultaneously. Unless you take squeen's position against personalized characters as a defining element of the OSR, which I don't.

 

[Guy Fullerton]

Reading through vintage fanzines again recently, from roughly 1975-1979*. The overwhelming majority of scenarios and descriptions of play fall into a “dungeon” or “challenge-based play” category. The descriptions of play read more like a sporting event recap, as opposed to a story; though both types form narratives, the former has less of a classic story structure, and the beginning & ends correspond mainly to start and end of a play session.

More than story focus, at least in A&E, I see a lot of of rejection of perceived arbitrariness of D&D mechanics, that drive toward things like spell point systems, smoother progressions, elimination of weapon & armor restrictions, and, well, RuneQuest. Like way more of this than anything about story or even just “acting in character.”

I fully admit to selection bias, being drawn more to the potential sources of challenge-based play. So take that with a big grain of salt. Someone looking to find more story support might want to examine early stuff related to The Chaosium: Wyrm’s Footnotes, for example. Pretty sure you can buy all those on drivethru. The Elusive Shift probably mentions plenty of other sources; haven’t read it yet.

* another bias is that a sizeable fraction of the zines are from the UK. Probably a disproportionate amount relative to the number of players in the US vs UK. Could probably substantiate that based on convention attendance records.

Anecdotally, I feel like UK D&D output started tilting more toward story around the same time as US output: Tortured Souls and/or Beast Enterprises stuff that eventually became the Doomstones scenarios; and some of the TSR UK modules. But this is pure feeling without any real analysis.

 

[squeen]

@Guy Fullerton : A&E?

 

[Guy Fullerton]

Alarums & Excursions:

Alarums and Excursions - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Okay, so if I let players play what they want, go where they want, and do what they want, and provide opportunities for them to fulfil their goals and aspirations, what am I? Because I'm all about the agency, and letting the chips fall where they may, but I've also built campaigns around player's character concepts when there was enough meat there to do so.

I guess what I am saying is the definition seems so broad that it looks like you could be OSR and OC PR simultaneously. Unless you take squeen's position against personalized characters as a defining element of the OSR, which I don't.

I don't take personalising characters as anti-OSR either. I do think individual concrete people have personal styles that are often mixes of ideas taken from different cultures. The cultures form at the level of people justifying what they're doing and why to others and picking up certain explanatory frameworks to do that. Ultimately, it's you who has to decide what exactly you are.

I don't think the question you're asking splits along a significant line of division between the OSR and OC RPG. I wouldn't want to assert this as a hard line, but I'd propose a division between the OSR and OC RPG around challenge and "fairness".

Explaining the exact difference is convoluted, but I think it can be illustrated with a simple examplen: The PCs go into a dungeon, push deeper into it than expected, and end up TPKing when they run into a monster they just weren't ready for (perhaps the DM had planned it expecting them to only discover it after having gained some magic items hidden elsewhere, or a level or two of experience first).

I think OC RPG treats this as a failure state to be avoided, and the OSR treats this as a valuable part of play since it derives from character decisions. An OC RPG DM asks "What should I have changed here to make this encounter more balanced for the PCs?" and an OSR DM does not (though they might scrutinise play for how much of encountering this monster was actually caused by deliberate decisions of the PCs instead). Does that make sense?

 

[The1True]

Also, would you take any of them into the back room and give them a stern talking too?

Maybe give it a minute bro [cough, cough] I hotboxed the back room...

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Here's a Reddit thread that's exemplary of the kind of confusion I am trying to resolve / dissolve with this typology.

 

[squeen]

I went down that thread a bit and I'm not sure exactly what you were directing our attention towards? i.e. the confusion. Are you speaking of the confusion of "How D&D has changed over the years?".

A common refrain seems to be:

"It you are having fun, then you are not playing it wrong."​

While I agree that if you are having fun "don't stop", I also see a few posts like this:

TallIan2[/URL]]
My early experiences of D&D are much the same as yours. A group of advebturers[sic] hacking thjer[sic] way through room after room in a monster zoo. I would say the game has evolved since then to a more collaborative story.

I think it's fair to say that (a) it sounds like TallIan2 didn't have much fun, because (b) they were in fact playing it wrong.

Is it contentious to take it one step further and say, "even if you are having fun...you may still be playing D&D wrong?"

At least originally, it was a nerd-game invented by wargammers looking for a certain flavor of cerebral fun.

Also, is "fun" or pleasure the sole end goal of all games?

• Think about sports --- there's a lot of work and hardship and pain we put ourselves (and our kids) through to compete.
• EOTB already made the point about hobbies as a way to pass time. e.g. Is knitting "fun"?
• Learning to play guitar. Is that always fun? Blisters on your fingers, hours of rote practice, etc.
• Are video games purely fun? Why was "Flappy Bird" so popular?

So I open up the debate: is instant fun the sole goal of the game of D&D? Is there more than one class of "fun"?

Of course, you see where I am going with this...laying the groundwork to argue that challenge-based D&D gives us more than just immediate gratification. And that ego-stroking D&D gives us something else...something not always best to indulge, even if it is pleasurable. Just because your players like it, doesn't make it "good" or healthy. Think opiates.

Actually, nevermind. (climbing down off of moral high-horse).

 

[Guy Fullerton]

“Fun,” with its flexible meaning, stands too high a chance for my listener to project their own preferences over my statement’s intent, so I avoid using it. (Tangent: I avoid “role playing” as a verb, and “OSR,” for the same reasons.)

I play D&D because it’s worthwhile, despite not always being pleasureable, and sometimes being hard. Ditto for running 10k three times every week, and even having an enjoyable job. (I realize some people want 100% pleasure from their rpgs, and don’t hold that against them, but do warn that kind of person away from my campaign.)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

So I open up the debate: is instant fun the sole goal of the game of D&D? Is there more than one class of "fun"?

Like with all hobbies, we play D&D because we get something out of it - be it fun, creative satisfaction, a challenge, a social outlet, whatever. However that particular fundamental doesn't need to be debated - it's axiomatic to what hobbies are. What's to debate?

However, it's one thing to say "I do X because for me it gives me a feeling of Y", but it's totally another thing to say "everyone who is doing X for Z reasons is doing it wrong - X is meant for Y reasons, so here's some more reasons why those Z people are wrong"... that's just being an asshole.

A good contrast is the car hobbyist community. There are people who like classic muscle cars, there are people who like state-of-the-art Teslas, but at the end of the day the hobby isn't about everyone getting together and saying things like "the '67 Mustang is better than any Tesla, and I refuse to even get into a car made after 1980" - it's about "wow that's a mighty fine looking car right there. How much torque has it got?".

 

[The1True]

"It you are having fun, then you are not playing it wrong."

I've thought about this a bit over the years and come to the conclusion that my personal philosophy is the above, but officially, you're playing it wrong if you go to play at a Con and the game being played by the majority of players playing whatever version you prefer diverges wildly from the game you're used to playing.

 

[The Heretic]

"Fun" isn't quite the right word for it. I'd call it enjoyment instead. The knitter gets enjoyment out of their hobby by being able to create a usable end product. They also like how it gives them a chance to think.

Enjoyment varies person to person. Some people enjoy challenges. Failure is learning experience, they're out to conquer and eventually through trial and error they'll get their victory. Other people might play the game because they enjoy interacting in the imagined fantasy environment. They like to build a story for their alterego. Challenge is part of the enjoyment, but how much depends on the person. The person who sees failure as a learning experience is going to want a lot of challenge. The person building their alterego might want challenge, but they wouldn't want it to end with character death. They'd probably prefer other stakes. Then there are those that like the challenge toned down considerably so they can "win" and feel good about themselves (*cough* Donald Trump and golf *cough*).

There is no right or wrong way to play D&D, but like Squeen infers, if you are going to play dungeon crawls you might be better off playing "pre-trad". That example of a dungeon as a "monster zoo" could be an example of playing it wrong, because you need more challenges than just straight up fights. I think both Bryce and LARPers can agree on this.