The state of Post-OSR content

[Osrnoob]

Fairly certain it's a dire blood libel in the Pepe direction. Bryce needs to up his Marxposting to defend himself.

Why are giant frogs such an OSR...thing?

To be fair its a DND thing. The origin of the hobby is blackmoor.

Gygax, T1 the list goes and goes RABBIT

 

[squeen]

From a very recently posted 1e play-report (corrected). Appearently, the PCs are inherited from another campaign so the DM is not responsible for their stats or equipment.

The group was broken into two parts, the front group had a paladin who's [Avenger] sword was only able to protect him from every attack, just very very lucky (the F/TH 10/10, taken to 8/8 earlier in the night was killed) and the 12th level ranger taken to 1/5 HPs as well as the dwarf. Oddly the paladin's sword worked so well they charged him to attempt a bite (which was a big mistake as he's 18.00 strength with a +5 [Holy Avenger] sword (which does an additional 10 pts damage to CE).

Lucky fella indeed! Just missing the +5 Platemail of Etherealness and then he'd have typical Paladin Bingo.

40 years. Same old, same old. I know it's stupid that it still rubs me the wrong way. I'm not even exactly sure what my beef is anymore---that it feels like "cheating"? What ever the underlying motive, it's clear I've got an axe to grind against this class. A childhood trauma. Maybe there's group-therapy for it: "My name is squeen. I'm a paladin hater..."

Hey. Whatever. Quit grumping and let folks have their fun. Live and let live, right?

 

[The1True]

Hey. Whatever.

Dude, that's not the character class' fault. That's a PC with an improbable strength stat and a lesser artifact. That is entirely the DM's fault; especially if he's the only character in the party rocking those kind of attributes/gear.

 

[squeen]

Sure. A lenient DM---letting the player have a shopping spree in the PHB & DMG. But there must be a reason that a paladin is always the chosen class---or am I entirely bonkers? Best sword, best strength, best...?

Peanut butter and jelly?

Anyway. Enough about that.
Here's some silly D&D fun to cleanse the pallet:

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Hey. Whatever. Quit grumping and let folks have their fun. Live and let live, right?

Squeen is complaining of the Paladin class once more. All is as it ever was in the world.

Remind me to set up a play by post somewhere next month. Also I think I have a contest to announce. Damn.

 

[squeen]

Yeah. Poor self-control there. I'm done.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

With a gentle reminder to everyone about the no-politics edict, I actually asked Patrick about the Frognards thing, and he did have the following to say:

Yeah the combination of design, personality and political tendencies centred around you, Melan, Bryce and Noisms.

Largely;

- "real" D&D people with a lot of experience with early editions (usually ignoring 3rd edition on.

- Big on systemic adventure design focused on playability of the materials BUT ambilivilent or indifferent to stuff like neo-layout methods. Adventures tend to be text-heavy with an assumption of some 'unpacking' and probably a map-plus-open-file or book method rather than the one-open-book method.

- Ambivalent about fancy or expressionist art styles. Though not always against them.

- Tend to prefer more pseudo-natural generation and encounter tables for a many-session embedded style of play rather than punchy few-uses tables for handful of sessions or single adventure play.

- Tend to be right wing or more accurately, whatever centre-right is in OSR land. So not as far down the rabbit hole as Pundit but Tory (Noisms), presumably ex or current 4channer (you), East European low level culture warrior (Melan), and whatever Bryce is.

- The Frog is Pepe because of his association with the right and 4chan, and your generally disagreeable (in the Big 5 personality model sense) natures, engaging in negative criticism rather than liberal/corporate/community platitudes and willingness to call people faggots online (though for anyone reading, its really only Prince that does this, haven't seen it from the others . Together you are the Frognard tendency.

It appears that Pseudoepinephrine has gained glory everlasting for guessing it in one.

 

[Beoric]

Um.

Shame on you @PrinceofNothing for not being as agreeable and tolerant as Patrick?

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Shame on you @PrinceofNothing for not being as agreeable and tolerant as Patrick?

I think Patrick's assessment r.e. myself is reasonably fair. I do, on my blog, utilize the occasional zinger from the Shitlord lexicon, though not as much as in the good old days, as there is usually a funnier way to get something across. He did take pains to distinguish the term agreeable as belonging to the (I thought outdated) Big Five psychological model as opposed to any moral judgement.

Bryce being Centre right is a laugh though.

 

[Beoric]

I think Patrick's assessment r.e. myself is reasonably fair. I do, on my blog, utilize the occasional zinger from the Shitlord lexicon, though not as much as in the good old days, as there is usually a funnier way to get something across. He did take pains to distinguish the term agreeable as belonging to the (I thought outdated) Big Five psychological model as opposed to any moral judgement.

Bryce being Centre right is a laugh though.

You interact respectfully with people on this site who clearly have different politics from you. I'm comparing that to Patrick's sweeping dismissal of people as varied as you and Bryce, and painting you with the same brush. And equating the centre-right with the alt-right? For that matter, painting an entire playstyle as alt-right because of the politics of a couple of people who subscribe to it? I don't think he is in any position to judge anyone on disagreeableness or intolerance. Not really seeing the "friendly/compassionate" in there, you know?

 

[TerribleSorcery]

From a very recently posted 1e play-report (corrected). Appearently, the PCs are inherited from another campaign so the DM is not responsible for their stats or equipment.
Hey. Whatever. Quit grumping and let folks have their fun. Live and let live, right? View attachment 1075

Squeen, don't be so hard on yourself - evidence of greasy Monty-Haul play or even naked dice-fudging is clear - I have NEVER managed to roll the stats to play a 1e paladin - and this guy not only has those, but an 18/00 strength?

What's that, he rolled them at home, no witnesses? I bet.

 

[Beoric]

Squeen, don't be so hard on yourself - evidence of greasy Monty-Haul play or even naked dice-fudging is clear - I have NEVER managed to roll the stats to play a 1e paladin - and this guy not only has those, but an 18/00 strength?

What's that, he rolled them at home, no witnesses? I bet.

Could be gauntlets of ogre power.

It's easy to roll a paladin using UA rules.

 

[Evard's Small Tentacle]

Squeen, don't be so hard on yourself - evidence of greasy Monty-Haul play or even naked dice-fudging is clear - I have NEVER managed to roll the stats to play a 1e paladin - and this guy not only has those, but an 18/00 strength?

What's that, he rolled them at home, no witnesses? I bet.

Well, I had my group recently generate 9th level characters in front of me (4d6 drop the lowest) for Queen of Spiders; one of the characters not only rolled an 18/00 (first time I have seen it happen) but also rolled randomly gauntlets of ogre power and girdle of giant strength. Thankfully many ways to die in older editions.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

You interact respectfully with people on this site who clearly have different politics from you. I'm comparing that to Patrick's sweeping dismissal of people as varied as you and Bryce, and painting you with the same brush. And equating the centre-right with the alt-right? For that matter, painting an entire playstyle as alt-right because of the politics of a couple of people who subscribe to it? I don't think he is in any position to judge anyone on disagreeableness or intolerance. Not really seeing the "friendly/compassionate" in there, you know?

Thanks man, I try* to conduct myself to a different standard here because I am in effect a sort of Custodian. It does help to separate people from politics and for what it is worth, I am used to interacting with people that I don't agree with politically (but this is in The Netherlands, a placid country with over 18 political parties) so that helps.

I figure that the edgy/hyperbolic way I express myself on my blog its absolutely fair if you get the occasional irreverance back, especially from Patrick Stuart, so it doesn't really bother me that much personally. I interpreted his use of the term disagreeable as in a corruption of the Psychological Trait Agreeableness, which is a statistically derived Personality Trait used in the Big Five (or the more modern Hexaco) that describes the degree to which a person is forgiving, lenient, willing to compromise etc. etc. and not intended as a moral judgement. In general I would say that my first instinct is to be very disagreeable and harsh but this is mitigated by cognition, sales training, a reflective nature etc. etc.

I agree that lumping us all together politically under a misnomer that might cause some of FM's, err...more energetic fans to draw certain conclusions is a bit more dodgy.

* with varying degrees of success

 

[squeen]

Patrick + you-three all seem decent fellows. I think over time, he (PS) will regret pulling politics into the conversation.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

I interpreted his use of the term disagreeable as in a corruption of the Psychological Trait Agreeableness, which is a statistically derived Personality Trait used in the Big Five (or the more modern Hexaco) that describes the degree to which a person is forgiving, lenient, willing to compromise etc. etc. and not intended as a moral judgement.

Indeed. And I wonder - to steer the conversation just slightly - how much a DM's personality might correlate meaningfully with his style of gaming.

I can't help but think my own disagreeable nature *must* be bound up in my desire to present a game world that exists independently of the players, is largely indifferent to them, and from which they must wrest their success after great struggles. Not sure if I can encompass his comments about layout with this theory, though.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I can't help but think my own disagreeable nature *must* be bound up in my desire to present a game world that exists independently of the players, is largely indifferent to them, and from which they must wrest their success after great struggles. Not sure if I can encompass his comments about layout with this theory, though.

I think there's definitely a correlation between how you are wired, what kind of media you prefer, how you run your games, what appeals to you about a game etc. etc. One of my more right-leaning friends absolutely hates weird/gonzo, runs an almost quasi-historical game, very dungeoncrawly, very focused on consistency and by the book etc. etc., while I am used to a more story-focused, emotionally engaging, creative game from one of my other friends. Untangling whether two OSR GMs with different personality traits would run games that are more alike then two GMs of similar dispositions running different games is a chore certainly.

Stuart's categorization is rough in the sense that Bryce is very focused on utility, and that includes layout and ease of use and immediate table readyness. I find it inconceivable that someone who puts Bryce in his frequently read column would characterize Bryce as 'text heavy' + 'prep' + 'unpacking' and I don't actually know Noisms's taste well enough to comment (but a 4 out of 5 for RPR and a 5 out of 5 for Gardens of Ynn does seem to indicate that we have SOME baseline correspondence).

 

[TerribleSorcery]

Yeah I just noticed that. I wouldn't call any of Melan's work 'text-heavy' either. He uses text, text is his medium - I think they call that "writing"... But it's hard to find a superfluous sentence.

 

[squeen]

I find it inconceivable that someone who puts Bryce in his frequently read column would characterize Bryce as 'text heavy' + 'prep' + 'unpacking'

I bought Staurt's Silent Titans and found it to a more akin to a board game. Honestly, the only thing he's put out there that (to me) seems like playable D&D was Deep Carbon. Silent Titans was rules + art.

Compared to "rules + art", Lynch is "textual", i.e. not influenced or moved by product presentation beyond the utilitarian. He also frowns of the need for heavy prep and/or unpacking. That's how I read that. Nothing more. Look at Black Maw.

Not text-heavy, but text-based.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Yeah I just noticed that. I wouldn't call any of Melan's work 'text-heavy' either. He uses text, text is his medium - I think they call that "writing"... But it's hard to find a superfluous sentence.

I think its more an allusion to the type of adventures that we consider to be the ideal, not any adventures that we ourselves have written, in which case I think it would apply more to Melan then Bryce. Melan's stance towards prep is less hardline then Bryce's I think.

I bought Staurt's Silent Titans and found it to a more akin to a board game. Honestly, the only thing he's put out there that (to me) seems like playable D&D was Deep Carbon. Silent Titans was rules + art.

I hope not. Rules is his Achilles-heel! Veins is a fantastic bestiary married to a lacklustre Underdark crawl generator system.