The state of Post-OSR content

[Beoric]

It might be interesting to basically make things so hard that min/maxing is the expected baseline -- and synergy between characters becomes the goal!

I used to know guys from the 4e CharOp forums that sometimes ran their games like this; I think it is fair to say that monster optimization was also a topic of disucssion. Although typically the goal was to make all of the characters have the same level of optimization, whatever that was, so that nobody outclassed the others.

 

[Palindromedary]

Going to say it again---this article is brilliant. So informative to me an how the game evolved in the editions I missed. Bryce's reviews are mentioned. Wish I knew who this guy is.

A Historical Look at the OSR — Part II

Old-school Renaissance / OSR theory and design.

osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com

That's very kind of you. I post here once in a while, but mostly I just read. For all its low traffic this is one of my favourite OSR places and I don't miss any of the threads, but I rarely feel I need to say anything.

I really have to finish that series, but it's one part "increasingly fragmented sourcebase making the research a pain in the ass" and one part "oh hey, look at all this other work I need to do".

 

[squeen]

Hey Palindromedary! That's very cool. Forgive me if I you've told me that before and I'd forgotten.
Cool blog. Excellent write-up. I will strive to keep my synapses firing on this connection in the future.

 

[squeen]

Read through Gus L's response post to Pseudo's article on The Six Culture's of Play. I had noticed earlier in the comments he made in The Retired Adventurer that it did not sit well with him that his preferred style was OSR and not "Classic". Coincident with this, I had noticed a fairly recent buzz in the blog-o-sphere that has now started to elevate long campaigns as the new gold standard. Here's an example from JB's B/X Blackrazor site.

In his post, Gus L seems to be pushing back on this.

I’d argue that All Dead Generations and my current dungeon design seek to offer the same sort of “progressive development of challenges” and fairness that are the core of Classic design, but make them functional for contemporary play. By contemporary play I don’t mean 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons or its design principles, I mean the actual physical conditions that most RPGs seem to be played in in 2021.

The OSR traditionally has been small lairs and quick one-shots, so Gus suggests (and I've read this several other places, so it may well the new group-think) that people don't play that way anymore because they haven't got the time. Groups are in flux more and play is usually only 3-hour or so a week. Gus suggests that the design of the worlds need to change to accommodate this new reality (i.e. quicker to the "good stuff", less exploration in empty areas and/or travel time, and especially faster routes to high-level play). Generally accelerated, staccato D&D.

Those are all interesting points, but I guess what trips me up is that he wants all these changes (and I think these are the changes the hobby did already adopt for the Trad play-style) to still wear the mantle of Classic play---presumably because it will be challenging.

 

[Commodore]

Honestly, I'm most a fan of the Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign concept for scope, about half a year of meeting biweekly. Ideals of play experience are all well and good, but I run for people who own smartphones; dopamine fried, busy, whatever you want to call moderns. The days of wood paneling, shag carpets, and campaigns that are measured in decades are long gone.

 

[squeen]

I don't think there any denying that's the norm these days. Does your play feel rushed?

 

[Commodore]

I don't think there any denying that's the norm these days. Does your play feel rushed?

Not at all, I have a good idea for how much stuff my players are going to be able to get through, varied by system of course. Just means that the scope and pacing are very tailored. But, I finish campaigns...

 

[EOTB]

Shorter campaigns offering the entire scope of the rule set in a year or so are probably going to be the dominant play form for the foreseeable future. There's no reason to push against that, especially if it works for a lot of people.

There's also no reason to adopt it, just because it works for a lot of people. The question for everyone is: when I hear that sort of play model, does it excite me or "meh" me? If you want to be popular (this is also going to be a determinant for many people, it always has been in every form and field) then you will probably be excited because how you play is less of a priority than that you're playing with the largest pool of prospects possible.

If you're comfortable sorting over time to locate the few(er) who aren't looking for that type of experience, then you'll find them eventually.

I still think the root cause of this is that most adventures don't offer much in the experience beyond a stage to use character abilities; the thrill is in using ever expanding abilities. So to be stuck without ability advancement in adventures which are palpably only Potemkin Villages to everyone involved is pretty ho-hum.

What if, in a particular DM's game, you had a character that never changed? Could you still find thrills in that particular campaign, which varied but without observably scaling? In my mind, the answer of a group of players to this question has to be "yes" in order to be at the pinnacle of ability as an adventure creator.

That does not mean character advancement and scaling is bad, only that then you can be sure it isn't the spice or seasoning covering up low-grade meat. Endeavor first to provide the best meat.

 

[squeen]

EOTB, once again you cut to the heart of the matter. Gus' seeming impatience and willingness to alter the ground rules to get "there" faster is what concerned me. I've long felt the emphasis on ever expanding abilities has always seemed off---a red flag pointing to a fundamental dissatisfaction with the game (as I know it) but without really any clue as to a root cause. Perhaps your notion of "adventures written primarily as a PC-ability stage" is an explanation.

Your point (and caution against pushing against it) is well taken by me. Thanks.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

... but I run for people who own smartphones; dopamine fried, busy, whatever you want to call moderns. The days of wood paneling, shag carpets, and campaigns that are measured in decades are long gone.

Rome didn't fall in a day.

 

[Beoric]

Those are all interesting points, but I guess what trips me up is that he wants all these changes (and I think these are the changes the hobby did already adopt for the Trad play-style) to still wear the mantle of Classic play---presumably because it will be challenging.

I don't have an issue with this. The suggestion that long campaigns may be an ideal does not preclude making allowances for changes in the time available for play. He doesn't fall outside the "Classic" camp just because he makes concessions to accommodate everyone's schedule. It's not like he's advocating one-shots as the primary mode of play and trying to label it as Classic.

I mean, I miss regular long sessions, but now I have to settle for playing a whole lot less. But I still want to get that same rush from the game, so finding a way to make shorter/less frequent games feel the way long/frequent games felt seems like a laudable goal.

 

[squeen]

Agreed. I think the goal is laudable too, but my concern has to do with rushing things. I thought about it some more, and I think it was his statements that people want to get to things like high-level domain play despite the shorter amount of time. But as you know there is very little domain-play material available. Could it be partly because things have gotten accelerated that the inter-kingdom politics have been hollowed out? It's like trying to bake a turkey in an hour at 1200 degrees.

Am I making any sense?

 

[Beoric]

Well, you could shorten getting to domain play by cutting out the hex-clearing and castle-building stages, ie. by granting an existing fief to the character(s). Outside of that there is essentially no Classic guidance for the domain game other than wargaming rules, so any decent domain-play adventure would be a welcome addition. The DM is setting the initial environment for the politics anyway, so I don't know that missing out on player involvement at that stage makes you lose anything.

tl;dr: There isn't a recipe to follow, so how can he be rushing anything?

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

Gus and I have been talking via Discord for a bit about it both before and after this post, and I think he sees his project as developing new techniques adapted to new conditions but for the purpose of upholding the values of classic play and realising them in new ways. I think Gus still wants long campaigns with risk-reward, but he's concerned about the focus and crispness of the small individual sections (the "jewelboxes" - both modules and sessions) that he wants to string together into that larger campaign.

 

[Evard's Small Tentacle]

Shorter campaigns offering the entire scope of the rule set in a year or so are probably going to be the dominant play form for the foreseeable future. There's no reason to push against that, especially if it works for a lot of people.

There's also no reason to adopt it, just because it works for a lot of people. The question for everyone is: when I hear that sort of play model, does it excite me or "meh" me? If you want to be popular (this is also going to be a determinant for many people, it always has been in every form and field) then you will probably be excited because how you play is less of a priority than that you're playing with the largest pool of prospects possible.

If you're comfortable sorting over time to locate the few(er) who aren't looking for that type of experience, then you'll find them eventually.

I still think the root cause of this is that most adventures don't offer much in the experience beyond a stage to use character abilities; the thrill is in using ever expanding abilities. So to be stuck without ability advancement in adventures which are palpably only Potemkin Villages to everyone involved is pretty ho-hum.

What if, in a particular DM's game, you had a character that never changed? Could you still find thrills in that particular campaign, which varied but without observably scaling? In my mind, the answer of a group of players to this question has to be "yes" in order to be at the pinnacle of ability as an adventure creator.

That does not mean character advancement and scaling is bad, only that then you can be sure it isn't the spice or seasoning covering up low-grade meat. Endeavor first to provide the best meat.

I think the problem here is that in most tables I have been in, you have people that prefer steak, spicy indian food, mexican, pizza... there might be common elements that everyone enjoys but some people like tactics, others play for solving puzzles, others play for an engaging and immersive world. This variance in enjoyment also drives how people interact and participate in the game. Most GMs have to some degree cater to all of the variant tastes to some degree (especially if you are playing with friends as opposed to doing some sort of a gaming casting call).

 

[squeen]

Here's a few posts I like on the topic of what I'd label "tough-love" DMing.

Mother-May-I
DMs Eat Last

A small excerpt from the tail end of the first to get yer goat.

DMing is not a friendship role. It is not a co-equal role. DMing is a leadership role; and one of the truths about being a leader is it doesn't matter a good goddamn if, as leaders, we're liked. In fact, we can be actively hated. That doesn't matter. To lead, we don't need to be liked, we need to be respected ... which means we must do things that earn respect. Holding our ground on things we believe — even if that makes us hated — is key to that respect.

DMing players forces us to interact with players in a very specific way that many, many people cannot do. For some, the idea is anathema to their belief system. Some are too timid. Some have the potential, but haven't worked out this is just what's needed to clear the road and make games move steadily forward. Still others have a warped, damaged sense of what goals are meant to be achieved.

An effective DM must have the capacity to make players obey.

Just those words can send a wave of fury through some readers. Others are saying, "what?" The rest are thinking, "damn straight."

I think the same folks who might hate the first linked post will love the second...and yet to me they are consistent.

 

[EOTB]

I think the problem here is that in most tables I have been in, you have people that prefer steak, spicy indian food, mexican, pizza... there might be common elements that everyone enjoys but some people like tactics, others play for solving puzzles, others play for an engaging and immersive world. This variance in enjoyment also drives how people interact and participate in the game. Most GMs have to some degree cater to all of the variant tastes to some degree (especially if you are playing with friends as opposed to doing some sort of a gaming casting call).

I agree those things are all different from each other, even though I label them collectively as "steak". Because in this case, all of those different things have a commonality in that level doesn't intrinsically matter to any of them. You can have engaging tactical content, puzzle content, immersion, etc., at level 1 or level 20.

When I have those things at a DMs table, what level I am doesn't really matter. Or to put it another way, I'm not going to switch from a campaign where all those elements are good, to one where they aren't good, because in campaign #2 I level much faster than in campaign #1.

 

[Beoric]

I think the same folks who might hate the first linked post will love the second...and yet to me they are consistent.

I don't know that I would take lessons on leadership from Alexis Smolensk. He mistakes power for authority, and bullying for strength.

He is also way off base here. DM should not be thought of as a leadership position. What precisely are you leading your players to do? Your players are supposed to make their own decisions without your influence. No, in terms of your interaction with players, DM is a refereeing position. Smolensk just wants to label himself as a leader to justify his treatment of people.

 

[EOTB]

I have to disagree with that. The DM is the leader. When the social dynamic at the table goes to shit, players expect the DM to right the ship.

A lot of people do not understand the concept of the leader-servant. That's what a DM is. But make no mistake, the DM is the leader of that group of people. That doesn't mean the DM directs the micro. And the players desire the DM in that position. If they don't then that DM is not a leader, he is just a caddy.

 

[Beoric]

I have to disagree with that. The DM is the leader. When the social dynamic at the table goes to shit, players expect the DM to right the ship.

A lot of people do not understand the concept of the leader-servant. That's what a DM is. But make no mistake, the DM is the leader of that group of people. That doesn't mean the DM directs the micro. And the players desire the DM in that position. If they don't then that DM is not a leader, he is just a caddy.

That is a management function which requires mediation or adjudication skills. While arguably this can benefit from leadership skills (most social interactions can), they are not strictly necessary to the role. The DM has de jure authority granted by the rules and de facto power stemming from his right to refuse to run a game for somebody. He can apply those without being inspirational or conveying his vision.

The difference between management and leadership gets a lot of ink (pixels?) in business. Generally the difference is recognized but not easily defined, although you can see commonalities among the varying definitions; here is an example, or you can google "management vs leadership" to see a variety of takes. But in general I think you can say that managers manage and leaders lead. Leaders have a vision of where they want to do and a variety of social skills that make their fellows want to go there with them. Leaders can lead even if they have no power, and in general (I can't off hand think of any exceptions) they make their own authority.

I would go so far as to say a DM with strong leadership qualities may need to suppress those qualities at the table, lest they exert undue influence on the players. Although maybe that would be a good thing in a Trad game, so maybe I'm just talking about Classic/OSR DMs.