What is OSR?

[tdenmark]

I was recently reading a review of Delving Deeper and noted the reviewer called OSR Old School Revolution, not a common interpretation of the acronym. I'm wondering what OSR means to you?

Some others:
OSR: Old Studies Rules
OSR: Old School Reference
OSR: Old School Roulette
OSR: Old Stuff Regurgitation

Seems like so far the only thing in common is Old.

[Piper]

Mar 14, 2020 14:06:01 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

I'm wondering what OSR means to you?

To me it means the way I've been playing since 1975 ...

[Zenopus]

Shouldn't it be "Old Studies Rules" if it's modeled after TSR....?

Anyway, I first heard it as Old School Renaissance - on G+ I think - and still think of it that way, though I've heard the others used occasionally.

It's also in the title of OSRIC as "Old School Reference and Index Compilation".

[tdenmark]

Mar 14, 2020 14:51:43 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Shouldn't it be "Old Studies Rules" if it's modeled after TSR....?

Anyway, I first heard it as Old School Renaissance - on G+ I think - and still think of it that way, though I've heard the others used occasionally.

It's also in the title of OSRIC as "Old School Reference and Index Compilation".

Part of the motivation for posting this. I wanted to hear more definitions of OSR.

I find it funny there appears to be little or no consensus what the acronym means. Yet it has become so ubiquitous. Like in this Twitter account I recently found: Old School Roulette (see, another one)

[tdenmark]

Mar 14, 2020 14:39:42 GMT -6 Piper said:

To me it means the way I've been playing since 1975 ...

Indubitably.

[creativehum]

I like "Renaissance" because it reminds me of the Italian Renaissance. The luminaries of the Italian Renaissance thought they were looking back toward Ancient Greece and Egypt and bringing the old ways of wisdom back. But, in fact, they were right about some things, wrong about others. That is, it was a burst of creativity built not on recreating the past brick by brick, but building new things by looking at those old bricks.

When I think Old School Renaissance, I'm never thinking, "Making it exactly like before," but rather "looking back for inspiration to see what we can create today."

[Greyharp]

A good many years ago when people started debating both the nature and the origins of "The OSR", Rob Conley's investigations found the first traceable use of the term "Old School Renaissance" was by an anonymous poster on the Dragonsfoot forum in 2005. Given that the whole business emerged largely as a rebirth (and reclamation) of the TSR versions of D&D during the WoTC 3rd Edition paradigm, at the time Renaissance felt like an apt term. These days I think "Old School Rules" is a much better fit for this section of the hobby. However I still think of it as Old school Renaissance and voted accordingly.

[Starbeard]

My gut also tells me to use Renaissance as the standard term, but in my own head I usually see OSR as "Old School Revival": not a leap in difference, but enough that I personally just like that word better.

[talysman]

Old School Renaissance, but don't really see the other three as being that far away from the concept.

What I'm more concerned about is the contrast between the groups who think "OSR = partially or totally compatible with TSR-era D&D" vs. "OSR = anything that's simple, gonzo, and deadly". I don't think these are entirely compatible groups and confuses things. The interests of both groups do occasionally intersect, though.

(On the other hand, The third group who says "OSR = a meaningless marketing term" are just wrong and don't need to be respected.)

[hamurai]

Mar 14, 2020 19:15:55 GMT -6 talysman said:

Old School Renaissance, but don't really see the other three as being that far away from the concept.

Same here. The other terms probably have to do with the development of OSR:

Mar 14, 2020 19:15:55 GMT -6 talysman said:

What I'm more concerned about is the contrast between the groups who think "OSR = partially or totally compatible with TSR-era D&D" vs. "OSR = anything that's simple, gonzo, and deadly". I don't think these are entirely compatible groups and confuses things. The interests of both groups do occasionally intersect, though.

That's something I noted, too. The term started out as being "D&D-ish & compatible" and became more and more "light-weight, gonzo, deadly". I'd imagine many newcomers to the OSR (Folks who just discovered these games, I mean. Not saying that it's some sort of movement.) don't even know about the connection between D&D and OSR anymore.

Personally, to me OSR is still the original term and I don't count games with other mechanics and new-school light-weight games labeled "old school" as OSR. They might have an old-school spirit, but they're not part of the OSR. In that respect, I believe OS Renaissance is pretty much over anyway, and that's probably why the meaning has changed, too.

[Vile Traveller]

It's "Renaissance" to me, though I just noticed that DTRPG calls it "Revival".

[Finarvyn]

"Old School Renaissance" for me as well, which I really interpret as "back to the old days of D&D." There's no reason why this couldn't encompass other games of the era, of course, (perhaps RQ or T&T or MERP) but I find it annoying when games of the 1990's or 2000's get swept into the umbrella of OSR.

For me, "old school" is my personal old school and represents an era of simplicity rather than complexity. RQ and MERP, to pick on two I mentioned, were never simple but instead felt like an evolution of the simple into something with more bells and whistles. Those sorts of games seemed to me at the time like alternates to playing AD&D, or rules sets where designers didn't like the way AD&D developed. They are old, yes, but to me they aren't really "old school." I realize that this is probably a me thing and I'm putting my own personal bias into the definition.

So for me, "old school" deals with the game as I first learned it in the 1970's. It's Chainmail, OD&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, and Boot Hill. It would probably also have included Warriors of Mars if I had owned a copy back then. It's games with a certain feel or "vibe" from the era. I might also include SPI's PRESTAGS as an alternate to Chainmail, but in general it's TSR stuff.

My own personal "Old School Renaissance" is a look back to those days, and trying to show others the way back. It's taking my 5E group and letting them experience an OD&D dungeon crawl with mapping and such. It's taking away square-counting on a battlemat and getting back to "what do you do?" It's not getting hung up on looking up rules but instead saying, "roll something and I'll tell you what happens." I do this stuff sometimes with 5E and my home group is used to it, but I still get funny looks sometimes when I ask my players to put away the 5E Player's Handbook and just think about the game.

Way too long with me waxing poetic, but I felt the "vibe."

[Starbeard]

(Man, this turned out way longer than I expected)

In the beginning I thought of the OSR as a shorthand for going back to Gygax era D&D, but over time I felt that it broke into four categories:

1. 'Authentic' TSR D&D purity. This would be like running authentic modules from the time using whatever D&D version the module was written for (and no mixing rules!). The use of anything new should be largely restricted to play aids, like rules references and modern commentaries on the modules, or digital scans of the original stuff.

2. The retroclone movement. New modules being played with modern rulebooks that ape a specific edition of TSR D&D. This could bleed into (1), either by using modern modules in your 'authentic ' TSR D&D game, or using a modern retroclone as your system to play historical modules.

3. The 'OSR aesthetic' crowd. New games whose mechanics and/or themes are loosely inspired by Original or Basic D&D ('lightweight, deadly and gonzo, with combat and character rules that are probably within 3 stages removed'), and/or bringing these mantras into your modern game of choice. The designers for this one tend to be artists, I've noticed, and their thematic art is central to the product.

4. Playing out of print games, and out of print editions of current games. It doesn't have to be D&D and it doesn't have to be lightweight, and it doesn't really need to be an RPG or even from before the 90s; though usually it means just RPGs from the 70s & 80s.

They all have their niche within the Venn diagram, and their limitations. (1) is difficult to do without being a collector, and promotes only running official modules in official settings; (2) has suffered from bloat in a sea of 99% identical possibilities; (3) is overly dependent on visual presentation, almost requiring you to be a skilled artist (or pay one) to produce content in a scene that otherwise pretends to bill itself as 'DIY', and puts the game's published imagery as the focus of the game session. (4)'s main issue is that it doesn't have any limiters beyond, 'Let's crack open something people used to play', so it can be difficult finding people who are enthusiastic about the same games in the same ways.

I myself have participated in all of them to degrees, but at my core I realize that I'm definitely a (4). Early D&D is my top game, but I'm a historian at heart and that means I'll just as well sit down for any game if it's dead. Like, I normally wouldn't go out of my way to suggest playing Monopoly, but I probably would if it was a copy from the 1930s. I'll buy, research and play an obscure, clunky basement-printed, locally sold wargame from the 80s or 90s with horribly esoteric mechanics, just because someone took the time back then to make it.

I think (4) also has the widest cultural resonance, too. At the exact same time we've seen the major advent of the retrocomputing scene, retro video gaming ('emulated is OK, but it's best if it's on the original hardware, vintage TV and all'), VHS culture, etc. We also saw big board game companies start the practice of issuing nostalgic reprints of old board games in their original forms.

Basically, I think the OSR was always part of a wider movement toward 'entertainment archaeology'.

[creativehum]

Mar 15, 2020 4:08:29 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

My own personal "Old School Renaissance" is a look back to those days, and trying to show others the way back. It's taking my 5E group and letting them experience an OD&D dungeon crawl with mapping and such. It's taking away square-counting on a battlemat and getting back to "what do you do?" It's not getting hung up on looking up rules but instead saying, "roll something and I'll tell you what happens."

I think a lot of the non-TSR compatible games are definitely about exactly this, whether or not they are TSR compatible.


Into the Odd, for example, fits its rules essentially on two digest sized pages. It won't remind most people of OD&D. But it is all about getting the GM to ask, "what do you do?" and the players to conjure interesting answers exactly as Finarvyn suggests. 

I can definitely see how people make a sturdy distinction between TSR-compatible/how we used to play and the newer games that don't look at all like early D&D. But as others on this thread have mentioned, there is also a strong overlap in play style. The newer games simply strip things out to lean into that play style as much as possible. 

I'll be honest, my lightning moment about OSR came when I read a post by Geoffrey McKinney over on the Lamentations of the Flame Princess site’s forum. He posted this 11 years ago. And when I read it I thought "Okay, I want to know more about the OSR.

The 1974 D&D rules have a specific flavor to them, which I will here refer to as “vanilla”.

The various versions of A/D&D through the decades (as well as their support products) have not travelled far from 1974 in terms of flavor. Thus we have “French vanilla”, “vanilla bean”, “vanilla with nuts”, “vanilla with chocolate syrup”, “vanilla with ______”, etc.

Consider: “This setting has crusty dwarves who have wars with goblins who have chests full of gold and elves living in forests with dragons flying overhead while regenerating trolls live in caves and every town has a cleric to heal people and magic-users will zap you with fireballs and etc.”

I just described almost every published D&D product. Those that supposedly “innovate” from that merely A) add more stuff to that mix (“…plus laser guns and crashed spaceships and robots!”), and/or B) give the above mix some twists (“In this campaign, elves live in the desert and ride anhkhegs.”).

The only two publishers that I know of who are giving us actual innovation are Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Goodman Games (with their forthcoming DDC RPG and with James Raggi’s Random Esoteric Creature Generator).

Ever since the 1970s, people have typically failed to distinguish between A) the D&D game and B) the sample playing pieces included with the game. Just about every D&D product is full of monsters from the standard lists, magic items from the standard lists, spells from the standard lists, and etc. I think that shows a reticence to really unleash the imagination.

As far as I’m concerned, all of the D&D monsters, magic items, and spells are merely suggestions/options/examples. I chucked all but 6 of the standard monsters from Carcosa, and I dumped ALL of them from Isle of the Unknown. All the standard magic items are absent from both those products, as well as all the spells and even magic systems. Demi-humans aren’t there, either. All gone!

The bedrock, the basis of the game is pretty much the standard character generation system for making a human fighter, plus the rules for him to operate: to hit, saving throws, etc. And I think that’s it. Even the equipment lists and prices are merely options. Everything else is wide-open for the referee to make as he wills.

By perceiving all these options as necessities, all too many people will say, “Yeah, but without magic missiles/orcs/dwarves/you-name-it, it just isn’t D&D anymore!” Which is like saying, “If it’s not some kind of vanilla, then it just isn’t ice cream anymore!”

I have as my authorities the very highest: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

They write at the beginning of the 1974 D&D rules under “Scope”: “DUNGEONS and DRAGONS will provide a basically complete, nearly endless campaign of all levels of fantastic-medieval wargame play. Actually, the scope need not be restricted to the medieval; it can stretch from the prehistoric to the imagined future…”

Then, on the very last page of the rules in the “Afterward”: “We urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!”

Wow.

D&D can have any setting whatsoever, from the prehistoric to the farthest of futures. And YOU decide (based on your whim alone) how EVERYTHING will be.

That’s from Gygax and Arneson in January 1974.

It’s too bad that those three sentences have been basically ignored by virtually all publishers of D&D material. There is enough published D&D stuff (of all the vanilla variations) to last anyone 20 lifetimes. I for one have no desire to see another orc or another +1 sword. I want to reach back to the exhortations in the 1974 rules and have some really imaginative stuff published.

So I am very thankful for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and for Goodman Games. They are driving the OSR truck through unexplored terrain rather than keeping to the safe, well-trodden paths.

There is nothing wrong with vanilla ice cream. Just don’t neglect all the other flavors. I occasionally play a game of vanilla D&D, but most of my D&D games are of various other flavors. Variety is the spice of life!

This, for me, is what the OSR as a "rebirth" has been about.

So, for me, once we remember that...
a) Gygax encouraged us to build our own rules to reflect the rules and rulings we want and need for our campaign, and
b) the text of OD&D encouraging us to try all sorts of things

... I can see how the OSR (as a "rebirth" not a "re-creation") could easily produce games that are in some ways drastically different than the original games, but also keep that spirit of creativity and invention found in the original LBBs alive in new ways.

That all said, I'm still excited to run a campaign for my group using the Delving Deeper rules using the Dolmenwood setting. I want to see where these rules will take us.

[Finarvyn]

Geoffrey is wise. And he was wise 11 years ago, as well.

Mar 15, 2020 11:33:10 GMT -6 creativehum said:

So, for me, once we remember that
a) Gygax encouraged us to build our own rules to reflect the rules and rulings we want and need for our campaign, and
b) the text of OD&D encouraging us to try all sorts of things, I can see how the OSR (as a "rebirth" not a "re-creation") could easily produce games that are in some ways drastically different than the original games, but also keep that spirit of creativity and invention found in the original LBBs alive in new ways.

I think that this is a totally valid way to look at OSR, even if it doesn't fit my own personal definition. I think it's the "drastically different than the original games" where I have the most problems myself, because I see it more as a return than a creation of new stuff that might have been. On the other hand, the DCC RPG is exactly that -- a new thing that represents a direction that the old game MIGHT have gone -- and I still enjoy that, so I guess I don't 100% follow my own definition.

[creativehum]

Mar 15, 2020 12:32:21 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

... so I guess I don't 100% follow my own definition.

Do most us, really, do this in most things?

[DungeonDevil]

old stuff regurgitation

[Deleted]

omnipotent savory practices

 

[Deleted]

I've heard it referred to as Old School Renaissance for the most part. I'd kind of prefer revival to renaissance if I got to pick the term from scratch.

In terms of what counts as OSR, I'm not sure there is a consensus opinion. For me, the mechanics have to be simple enough to fit somewhere on the continuum between OD&D and AD&D and still feel like those during play. So I don't have any problem thinking of new games like DCC RPG and The Black Hack as OSR games, for example. I don't think fidelity to the early rulesets is necessary because there's so much variation between how individual DMs run the early editions. OD&D is inherently DIY and none of the groups I ever played AD&D with made a priority of playing by the rules as written.

[robertsconley]

Mar 14, 2020 16:01:54 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

Part of the motivation for posting this. I wanted to hear more definitions of OSR.

From my blog

To me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

Mar 14, 2020 16:01:54 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

I find it funny there appears to be little or no consensus what the acronym means.

Where the hell did the OSR come from?

It grew organically there was never a consensus nor will there ever be one. In short it means what you think it means. The difference this time around is that the technical and legal means are available to everyone equally. So if one think that the OSR is doing it wrong they can show the rest of us how it done by doing the same thing every other OSR publisher has done starting with OSRIC and Basic Fantasy.


The result that some are focused on preservation and supporting specific older editions. Other are more interested in their own particular take. And other still are interested in using classic edition mechanics in new was or mixed in with newer mechanics. Some unrelated RPGs are considered OSR because they share same spirit as the classic editions or have a unique take on the source material that led to the classic editions. It is a crazy kaleidoscope and shows no sign of ending.

[tdenmark]

Any RPG before Vampire: the Masquerade.

[azera]

Mar 15, 2020 12:36:17 GMT -6 creativehum said:

Mar 15, 2020 12:32:21 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

... so I guess I don't 100% follow my own definition.

Do most us, really, do this in most things?

Ah, the age old problem: what you plan to do, what you actually do, what you think you did, and what you say you did often don't all match up.  Also, people can change their minds and tastes over time.

Mar 18, 2020 5:30:39 GMT -4 tdenmark said:
Any RPG before Vampire: the Masquerade.

To me, I think OSR means playing in a way that would be compatible with TSR-era D&D.  I'm fine with using different specific rules (AC up, down, or sideways...ok, maybe not sideways), system alterations (thief skills? any character skills? weapon-based damage or class-based damage?), and whatever, as long as I can fit stuff like B1, T1, or Night Below side-by-side with stuff like Tower of the Stargazer, Tomb of the Iron God, or Dyson's Delve without any conversions more complicated than what I can do in my head.  For something like Stars Without Number, I'd call it a rules-light RPG rather than OSR, and I'd put something like DCC in a separate category as well (random gonzo deadly?).

For the actual acronym, how about "Ossified yet Scrumptious Rules"?   (serious answer = Old School Renaissance)

[tdenmark]

Mar 18, 2020 3:30:39 GMT -6 tdenmark said:

Any RPG before Vampire: the Masquerade.

I suspect the definition will continue to evolve, like Classic Cars.

I somewhat tongue-in-cheek chose V:tM because that was the start of a generation of games designed by people who grew up playing RPG's. It was a fundamental shift in the philosophy of game design from wargame roots to a "storytelling" focus. Not that there wasn't plenty of that from the beginning, it was just a different way of designing the systems.

[dicebro]

Original System Rulings!

[tdenmark]

Just heard a new definition I think I really like.

O.S.R.
Open Source Rules

It accurately describes the rules sets that have been made, and is also forward looking which is good because it means OSR can point to the future as well as the past.

[Deleted]

One thing I can say for sure is that I've been in five or six different communities that are supposedly OSR, and all of them are completely distinct from one another. It seems like neither a list of what is OSR nor a list of what isn't applies to all of these. The things that we talk about on this board are probably closest to my own wheelhouse, and the most alien to my mindset would be something like the OSR Discord which I do participate in but which seems to be peopled largely with people who are talking about things completely alien to my mindset. I'm not sure if it's an age thing or a life experience thing but I don't identify much with them.

I also kind of feel like when you came into the OSR matters a lot, too, because ten or fifteen years ago it was dominated by 0e and 1e discussion and nowadays I feel like a significant portion of newbies don't realize that the early OSR rules sets were based on D&D at all. It's easy to miss that for the first little while when browsing the subreddits or various internet pages. D&D-derived systems like OSE continue to be popular year in and year out but then there are titles like Mork Borg or Mothership which, while arguably espousing old school aesthetics and/or mechanics don't immediately pop out at one as having anything to do with older D&D or any D&D at all.

That's one reason I've been doing a series of weekly posts at the OSR subreddit to bring attention to things I personally enjoy about OD&D. I'm not under the impression I can steer the vessel back in that direction or anything, but it's what excites me in 2020, even amidst all the new products coming out, and it's what I enjoy talking about. I want people to know what it is and how prominent it was in OSR discussion back when I came into the scene for the first time. Even for people who don't fully adopt that same enthusiasm, maybe it'll help put "the new hotness" into perspective. (I'm glad "the new hotness" exists. I'm happy for people who are getting something meaningful out of Electric Bastionland, Ultra-Violet Grasslands, Troika!, etc. but I strongly suspect many of these people's very first RPG was 5e D&D and they're quite young. Context is important, I feel.)

Far be it from me to actually attempt to define what the OSR is, though. Even to me! I can't hook the nose of Leviathan or draw him up from the waters. Beyond my power. I only know that I heard it call out in the night and I answered the call like a mad pilgrim.

[robertsconley]

Jul 6, 2020 12:12:36 GMT -6 @ampleframework said:

One thing I can say for sure is that I've been in five or six different communities that are supposedly OSR, and all of them are completely distinct from one another.

Good points.

For me it straightforward. The situation is a natural result of

1) People interested in the classic editions and/or RPGs that work similar to the classic editions
2) A wealth of accounts of people experience playing or running campaigns with classic editions and similar RPGs.
3) A wealth of open content on which to base new material either commercially or just to share.
4) The ease of finding fellow hobbyists thanks to the Internet
5) The ease of creating material by the use of digital technology (word processors, print on the demand, etc)


Note I did not comment on play style, settings, or specific mechanics. The basic result of the above that anything that can be done with classic edition or similar mechanics will eventually be done because people can and there are not a lot barriers for sharing it and finding other interested hobbyists.

The fact that the situation with Covid-19 is only accelerating this process because people are trying and succeeding at using Virtual Tabletops either through dedicated software or using chat/video software. It not better or replace face to face but it does dramatically expands one's ability to game with other with like interests.

The result is a kaleidoscope. The "lesson" is that you are still stuck with learning about a group's or individual interest. You can't assume anything because of the label OSR outside of a connection at some point with a classic edition either directly via mechanics or by tone and tenor for related RPGs. If you aim to sharing one thing that help greatly is clearly state what it is you are about in your work for the same reasons above.

[cadriel]

Back when there was a G+ and I was still pretty deep into what we call the OSR, or at least a couple of its manifestations, I would say that the OSR was a marketing label, an artistic movement (actually a couple of them), an approach to play, a community of players (actually several of them), and a way to describe some games. I still think "OSR" is all of those things, at once, and there's no way to focus down into this or that element and capture the whole thing.

For me, it has always stood for Old School Renaissance. That's what the Lulu group that held all the early OSR products was called and that's how I first started referring to it. And to me, "old school" has always had a Dickensian referent - "a phrase generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young" (from Bleak House). It has that "grognard" feel to it even from the early years.

The key thing about the OSR is that it clearly describes multiple, overlapping, distinct entities. Something that's true about one facet of the OSR is not necessarily true about another. It's almost always oversimplifying to start a sentence with "The OSR...." This is particularly true as it has gained a temporal modality over the years it's been a thing, and some parts of the OSR have changed a lot, while others have stayed more or less the same.

To actually define it, I'd say the easiest criterion is this: things that say they're in the OSR, probably are. Things from after 2004, that are generally inspired by TSR-era D&D (or other early RPGs) in any of aesthetics, rules, or play style, are possibly OSR. A retro-clone and its compatible products are probably OSR, although there are exceptions. Castles & Crusades isn't OSR even though it's quite similar to a lot of OSR retro-clones. Dungeon Crawl Classics is really close in some respects to the OSR and it's hard to say where it sits; I'd say out, although it seems to want to have it both ways. 5e D&D isn't OSR but the designers certainly looked at it and took notes. But there's no one test you can apply to anything and figure out if it's OSR. So the simplest is to listen to what people and products say.

[Deleted]

Oscar Smells Rank?

[tdenmark]

Jul 7, 2020 12:52:54 GMT -6 cadriel said:

Castles & Crusades isn't OSR even though it's quite similar to a lot of OSR retro-clones. Dungeon Crawl Classics is really close in some respects to the OSR and it's hard to say where it sits; I'd say out, although it seems to want to have it both ways. 5e D&D isn't OSR but the designers certainly looked at it and took notes.

Castles and Crusades is quintessentially OSR (if you are willing to have 1st edition in that continuum which I am). DCC is OSR too, though I'd say further out to the edge.

5th edition is remarkable that modern day WoTC would make something so clearly influenced by OSR. It isn't hard to run a pretty OSR flavored game with it. Note, I'm not saying 5e is OSR, it is its own thing, a sort of mixed bag of a bunch of stuff.