Saturday, July 10, 2010

There is an OSR debate?

So without linking or getting into any details I guess there is some sort of OSR debate going on.  Again.

See here is the thing about this kind of flare-ups.  If you don't hear about it it's like they are not even real.

Here is the OSR news I know and care about.
- I have my copy of "Palace of the Vampire Queen" now.  One more thing off my D&D-bucket list.
- OSR products are getting into some Borders. (by a company that also produces a ton of 4e products)
- I am going to run my kids through "Palace of the Silver Princess" orange version sometime in the next couple of weeks.
- There are some Ennie noms for some OSR-related products.  Good on them!
- There is a "homage/retro-clone" of 2nd Ed coming out.
- Tomb of Horrors for 4th ed is out now at my FLGS.  I am sure that is making someone out there foaming at the mouth in nerd rage.

Outside of that you don't hear anything about this in the stores (in fact you hear nothing) and most players (the ones that buy the products) don't care.

Arguing about it just makes the whole thing seem like an "us vs. them" and usually I find myself on the side of the people making the less noise. Or the ones that irritate me the less.

Personally, I am probably not part of the OSR.  Sure, I play old games, I also play the newest ones and indie games too.  I write for older games...and newer ones and small press. But I also have never bought into the "one-true-way" idea anyway and really neither do most game authors.

In the immortal words of Gary, "shut the fuck up and play." Oh wait, that was my old DM, not Gary.
Might as well burn my OSR membership card now and forget the secret handshake.

11 comments:

James said...

Politics & ego. And whether or not you "burn your membership card," The Other Side will always have a spot on my blogroll. :)

Timothy S. Brannan said...

And I appreciate that!

I am not "burning my card" anytime soon. But seeing how I plan to rave about the new 4e version of Tomb of Horror in a bit I might get kicked out.

Gaming Ronin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gaming Ronin said...

I play a lot of different games. I love S&W and S&S. I have copies of LL and OSRIC. While I like reading a lot of the OSR blogs I would not ever say I was part of that community.

Most of the OSR community message boards are awful. They are a great place if you want to get talked down to or treated like an idiot for liking something outside of the OSR movement.

To me the OSR movement has gone from appreciation of more classic games to a bunch of gaming elitist.

I'm sure there are a lot of exceptions. And its mostly the noisy minority that is causing a ruckus. But it reflects on the OSR as a whole.

My Membership card was marked return to sender before it ever got opened.

Rhonin84 said...

That card...huh...that's what I used for target practice...ok.

Hey as long as it's role playing it's good by me, now we start talking about those evil card games...then I get my pitchfork and torch to find the monster.

Anonymous said...

I am not involved in any OSR debate this time around! YAY!

The OSR is so DIY I don't know if there is an OSR anymore. There is enough material for decades of quality play out there.

James said...

@Ronin 78 - If you want to visit a Friendly OSR message board try the OD&D Discussion forum. Goblinoid Games' forum is nice as well. Not saying they're the only friendly ones.

Zachary Houghton said...

You liked the 4e Tomb of Horrors? I read it, didn't run it, but it seemed pretty nerfed to me. Like a Tomb of Moderate Annoyances. Was it different in play?

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Tomb of Horrors 4e: Have not read it all yet, but looking forward to it.

Rhonin84 said...

I thumbed through it today...for the medieval miniature combat game it seemed fine...for an adventure, meh.

I also thumbed through the Demonomicon, and I wasn't wowed it was really a bleh feeling. I put the stuff back and walked out of the shop spending nothing. Haven't done that in a bit...

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Well you can look through my copies.