BTW – good to see you here, Angelo. Welcome!

Looking back, if the Rules Cyclopedia hadn’t been available, I might’ve gone all the way back to B/X. If the OGL had been around back then, I probably would’ve made my own RPG. It probably would have been something built off of B/X and tweaked with my house rules (as opposed to a proper clone), but I can easily see how OSR has been facilitated by unwieldy systems and OGL availability.

If anything, I think the nostalgia is for a style of play – not necessarily the rules themselves – as well as the desire to share that style of play with younger gamers who are perceived as missing out on it due to the design of recent rules sets (3.x and 4e).

For me, “old school play” is defined by a several things:

1) “Loose” rules system. While many of the first generation (using a broad brush lets say 1974-1984) of RPG’s had quirky, sometimes illogical rules in most cases you could safely ignore one without significant side effects. In 1st edition AD&D for instance, you could replace the d6 initiative mechanic with the d20 mechanic from D&D 3.x, make a few minor adjustments, and drive on. The tight, interlocking nature of recent rules sets makes this increasingly difficult; for example, decide to remove attacks of opportunity from D&D 3.x and a whole range of feats, class abilities and combat strategies goes out the window requiring significant adjustment. While recent systems work well from the standpoint of being internally self consistent, they are more difficult to customize – especially should you have a resident rules lawyer in your player group who will howl like a banshee at the very prospect of tinkering with the rules mechanism.

2) Short / simple rules system. Early RPG rules were lacking in many areas, particularly regarding non combat related activity by characters. As gaming developed, demand grew for skill systems and the like with some games being designed specifically to address these concerns. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way – and particularly in D&D 3.x and later – the systems designed to help with resolving non combat tasks took over the rules system. Many if not most players will follow the path of least resistance in play; if they have to think, plan and roleplay in order to overcome a puzzle or negotiate with an NPC they will. If they can just use a skill roll and “get on with it”, they will do that instead. While as a DM you can evaluate a players plan or roleplaying for an encounter and rule accordingly, if they make their Diplomacy skill roll in a negotiation you can’t arbitrarily say “you fail” without the player feeling cheated.

3) Character fetishism. In older gams, character creation consisted of a few die rolls to generate attributes, some choices as to race and class and then purchase of equipment. Character creation overall took maybe 30 minutes to an hour and play could then begin if an adventure was ready. When characters gained experience, most gains in ability (spells, attacks etc.) were automatic and took little time. Character customization came primarily from game play in the form of set dressing (one fighter is a barbarian and wears furs and light armor, the next fightr is a knight who struts about in full plate mail and wields a halberd) and / or personality traits (the barbarian never betrays a friend and fights to save his henchmen in combats, the knight offers mercy to fallen foes if they are noble). With mechanics for many character interactions that were formerly roleplayed out, players of recent rules sets will often design their characters around one or more specific mechanics, so these mechanics begin to drive the game moreso than was formerly the case. In addition, the sheer complexity of building characters around such mechanics (in D&D 3.x, if the player eventually wants to use a particular prestige class at say level 12 they must start “building” their PC at character creation to meet the future rules requirements of their target class. This need to constantly “tend” the character as play continues (to make sure they eventually fulfill the rules requirement for a later class or specialty) leads to players spending hours working on characters when not playing (spending skill points, optimizing feats and spells, etc.) making the playr much mor einvested in the character and character concept they have been working on. While no player is happy about their PC getting killed or disabled (ability loss, level loss etc.) the sheer amount of work involved in creating and maintaining characters in later editions is a barrier to roleplay. As an example, in Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories Conan begins as a warrior and thief, eventually winding up as king of Aquilonia. In 1st edition AD&D play, a player could roleplay this out with a fighter (or perhaps fighter/thief); when the character transitioned from being a barbarian fighting and thieving type to moving among nobles, the change could simply be roleplayed out. In a recent edition game, the character would be pigeonholed as a barbarian since by the time they reached say 9th level they would not have the abilities or skills to function in a royal court (since skills like Diplomacy, Sense Motive etc. are not allowed to barbarians).

4) “Sandbox” style play. Old school play – in some cases simply by vitue of its simplicity (one might even say “primitive nature”) tended more towards loose narrative. That is, the default style of play was to run standalone adventures (either published or homebrewed) and let the narrative arise from the game play by use of recurring villains, players using found items as signature items for their character, etc. There was generally not some strong, overarching plot line that players were constantly herded towards and the DM tore their hair out trying to design around. From the late 80′s on, as gaming and fantasy fiction got more and more self-referential, strong storylines began to dominate both adventures and published campaign worlds. younger gamers have (near as I can tell) grown up in this sort of environment and it is their default play style.

5) Rules volume. As time has gone, the sheer volume of rules as well as the size of campaign world supplements has increased exponentially. Early RPG’s generally had at most a few hundred pages of rules. The 1st edition AD&D DMG had 240 pages, the PHB 128 pages (368 total) and many of these pages were tables, not densely written text; The D&D 3.5 PHB alone is 317 pages, the 3.5 DMG another 320 pages – nearly double the length of the 1st edition AD&D rulebooks. Add to later RPG’s the legions of rules supplements (“splatbooks”) and learning the system is more like studying for a thesis than a fun hobby.

Anyway, the point of all this is that the “old school revival” is not so much focussed on rules mechanics from the old editions as the tone of those rules and the style of play they encouraged. This is why the revivalists are not simply blowing the dust off of their old books. They recognize that to interest the younger generation of gamers in “old school play” they must adjust – one could say clean up – the rules to make them easy for younger gamers to adopt. Certain mechanics were arguably an improvement – the core d20 mechanic, increasing rolls being better for initiative and armor class, a skill system (albeit simplified) etc. The retro clones generally keep these – in keeping with the d20 OGL – but streamline the rest of the system in keeping with the original rules system they are cloning.

The good thing about this is even if the retro clones never take off they should at least influence the gaming community – preserving through cloning and hopefully passing on the DNA of the early, more open style of tabletop roleplaying games. The brevity of the clones if nothing else should at least get them a seat at the table of gaming choices for younger gamers, and with any luck some will take to the spirit of the older versions of the games like ducks to water. Would that happen if one just bought several boxes of old Players Handbooks or Basic/Expert sets and handed tham out at conventions? Probably not..

That said, I do hope that you’re right that the clones are the initial steps toward some player-inspired innovation, propagated with the blessing of a community-based license.

What I find interesting is that the common theme throughout this thread is the strong sense of community at the centre of OSR. I admit that I hadn’t considered that aspect as a motivator behind OSR, but there are strong relationships being built between OSR authors and players. Which makes all sorts of sense–wasn’t that the point of RPGs to begin with?

I can’t speak for others but for me it really boils down to three things:

(1) making the game my own
(2) bringing the game to a new generation
(3) sharing

The second point I think is very important. I play D&D with my kids,
but I’d feel funny teaching them to love a game if they cannot obtain
their own copy of the rules; even if I buy copies of the old books and
preserve them for 15 years, will they be able to find anyone to play
with, and where will THOSE players get rules? If not for the OSR I’d
honestly be nudging them toward non-D&D games that will be around.

The third point: the internet has ushered in a new era of community.
That did not exist when I was a kid. I was limited to my own
imagination, plus some books, a few friends, and an occasional (and
coveted) copy of Dragon. With the internet, D&D lives again in a way
it never did before.

IMO, This is the golden age of Dungeons & Dragons. We have it better
now than we EVER did before. The legal encumbrances always existed,
it’s just that before we lacked the ability to publish, to
communicate, to even be noticed. But we also lacked the inspiration
and the synergy of a worldwide community working 24/7 and
communicating in real time. We could never have produced what we
produce now.

The OSR has a very real opportunity to “establish” D&D, but it also
has the ability totally squander that opportunity. Thus far we have
seen clones, but I think we’re going to start seeing games that move
beyond mere clones. Something I really hope to see is the OSR jump
past the OGL and into a truly free license, unencumbered by any WOTC
IP. That will require the community to let go of the letter of the
rules, and embrace the spirit. We’ve taken great pains to establish
what Old School is as a gaming style, now we need to apply that to something other
than “D&D”. This ultimately comes back to making the game our own.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: Freedom to produce is key, as I intimate in my post. While nostalgia may be the initial attraction, the desire to produce without harassment is the motivation. Which I respect – to be clear, Chimera 1.x was built on the OGL, and (as I’ve said before), the whole system is built off of house rules that began with B/X D&D.

What had (and, to be honest, still does, at times) vex me is the precision with which some clones replicate the originals, without investing more improvement. On one hand, I respect deference to the originals, but not when that obedience espouses bad mechanics or arbitrary rules.

Still, the ability to produce may trump that. After all, xD&D made its following on those who tweaked house rules out of the canon. Why not with the retro-clones? If core rules duplicate what came before them, then maybe history will repeat itself and build a new following, each with his own ideas. If so, at least we’ll all have the ability to produce, literally, with creative license.

But I still think WotC are bozos for shutting down sales of OOP material in PDF while concurrently supporting an Open Game License that lets their OOP PDF market make, distribute, and sell their own games for free. We’ve all heard the arguments that TSR, then WotC, then Hasbro are businesses, so, ultimately, we can trace their decisions back to the bottom line. But when WotC cuts their own bottom line, deliberately, then they’re just being foolish, and, as hobbyists, how much can we trust their quality?

As far as I’m concerned, the retro clones are a legal way around the OGL. If you want to publicly publish a mod for OD&D, B/X, AD&D (1 or 2) or BECMI, you aren’t allowed to label your work as any of these titles, as that infringes on WotC IP.

By creating the retro clones, we are free to create, distribute & sell any mod for nearly any of these OOP games, because we can’t legally by WotC’s current version of the OGL.

So if Thorkie creates, distributes or sells a mod specifically for B/X D&D, WotC might take notice & come after him, tell him to cease & desist, take all his stuff off the interwebz & if he doesn’t comply, they can take legal action.

However, if he labels the same mod “Compatible with Labyrinth Lord, BFRPG, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Castles & Crusades, Mazes & Minotaurs, Encounter Critical, Advanced Fantasy RPGs” etc., and puts that page long disclaimer in there somewhere, WotC legals can’t touch him (as far as I know…).

However, the leap to the consumer has produced an unintentional side effect: now everyone wants these rules in print. And they want quality prints.

This is a good thing if you like OOP TSR games more than the crop of current RPG offerings that WotC would like for us to buy. This is, as far as I’m concerned, the heart & soul of the “Old School Renaissance”, and it seems to be spreading to the likings of newer gamers too. This means more players for us old timers/old schoolers.

I think this goes beyond “nostalgia” as you put it. It’s not that we in the OSR want the old & confusing rules, as the retro clone rules have cleaned a lot of this confusion up, its that we want the freedom to PRODUCE adventures (modules) for our beloved rules without interference from some company that has every legal right to sit on their IPs & refuse to let anyone else make games for them.

We want games that are simpler, not restraining our creativity when we design our games by having a rule for every little thing that is stuffed into the newer game rules, and for every rule that covers possible PC actions, instead of letting our imaginations loose & come up with creative solutions, now we have to roll dice to search a room or find a trap. The OSR
is our way of taking our games back & playing them the way we want to, and in the process hopefully we teach some newer players the joys of thinking “outside of the box”.

Bobjester

Or, put another way, whatever game gives you the most satisfying virtual rampage…

While it is true that nostalgia does play a part in some circumstance, at least initially, I believe the primary appeal is the social interaction between players. It is sad that kids do not know the joy of playing board games on a rainy day, much less a non electronic RPG. The allure that friends can get together and for an hour or two pretend to be someone else and go on a mindless rampage without actually hurting anyone is invaluable and great stress relief.

But, please take this from a person who was hoplessly addicted to the text version of Zork.