In the article I liked:
- he delineates between things that are challenging to the player-at-the-table, as opposed to the character-on-the-sheet
- the retro-gaming mantra: "the answer you are looking for is not to be found on your character sheet"
- the challenges that players overcome are often ones the players pose for themselves and so want to overcome purely for fictional reasons
- you jump in with a PC who is more or less a blank slate whom you will flesh out through play
- failure can and should be fun if approached in the right spirit, just like losing a match of basketball can and should be fun
- The frustration of failing to get treasure is a condition of the possibility of the pleasure of success.
- challenges in retro-gaming play style are also open-ended, admitting of no pre-given solution, and often not even an obvious path of least resistance--at least not one promising a reasonable chance of success. In fact, one good way to design a retro-gaming dungeon or location is to place challenges in it that you have no particular idea how the players will overcome.
That last bit really resonated with me---don't imagine a "right way to win" during your design. Just set up a tricky, seemingly
balanced-to-the-point-of-stasis scenario, and let your players surprise you in how they pick its locks (i.e. no mental "Adventure Path").
This design principal generally works out well for me---except in one case, in my megadungeon---the risks looked too high, and the status-quo too unbreakable...so the player's turned around and headed elsewhere. That was well over a year ago...will they actually return at higher level? TBD.
One final tasty quote:
"...the idea of balancing combat encounters with challenge ratings is incompatible with retro-gaming play-style. If you are playing well you will avoid combat when the balance goes against you, and if you do fight, you will usually be trying to tip things your way first. A fair fight is certainly not something to be celebrated (even chances of death, yay)! The other reason that balanced combats do not work in retro-games is that they are incompatible with a sandbox and open world, without some serious contrivance."
Anyway. Go read it, and get excited for the next zine issue(s).
(Speaking of magazines and this thread, Melan also just published a new issue of
Echoes From Fomalhaut (#7): From Beneath the Glacier to rave reviews over at K&KA.)
I think the general rule in
any good gaming is that the game has to engage the
player. I don't see how anyone can argue that a RPG game that is not engaging to the player is superior or even equal to one that does. So your first bullet applies to any style of play as far as I am concerned. There are any number of reasons why players might default to relying on challenges to characters, but IMO they will invariably cheapen the experience.
Bullet 2 is merely a consequence of bullet 1.
Bullet 3 is a consequence of having agency, which I also think is a characteristic of any well run RPG.
I don't think bullet 4 is universally true. If any good RPG game has to engage the player, and a player is engaged by developing his character in advance, I don't think you should penalize it. Honestly, I don't know why you as a DM should care if I have my character's personality or backstory developed in advance, as long as said backstory is not disruptive to the game. But I also don't think players should be required to develop their characters in advance, for the same reason.
Let me expand on this. I am not a religious person, but I am not opposed to the idea of running a cleric or paladin. However, if I needed to engage in any kind of social dialogue in character, I would need to develop a strong idea of who that character was and his attitudes about his faith in order to pull it off, because it does not come naturally to me. Otherwise the character would be just a piece I am moving on the board, not a character I am playing. But most of the other core classes I can slip on like a comfy sweater.
Bullet 5 is also a consequence of bullet 1.
Bullet 6 is a specific example of bullet 5.
Bullet 7 is another consequence of bullet 1.
DP is right, CR is no more and no less than a (slightly) more accurate assessment of monster power than monster level used to be. It serves the same purpose as the dungeon tables in Appendix C, and can be just as easily ignored if you would rather use the wilderness tables instead.
What this means is that everything, except bullet 4, is something that I think is consistent with good RPG gaming in general. I think that applying an "OSR" or "retro" label to it makes in inaccessible to new gamers, who are exactly the people you probably want to adopt it. It shouldn't be retro, it should be universal. And it shouldn't be asserted that trivial differences in design prevent good play; differences like how attack order is determined, or the method of calculating hit points, or giving a monster a "CR" instead of a "monster level" and using Arabic rather than roman numerals to express it. None of those things have anything to do with your seven bullet points.