Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts? I've been looking into OSR games, but it seems like a lot of the hype around them lacks substance to it. The philosophy of rulings over rules seems to promote arbitrariness resulting in "Mother may I" and relying on GM fiat. The oft lauded approach of "Combat as War" while it sounds exciting in theory, is falsely juxtaposed against "Combat as Sport" i.e. systems with actually engaging combat mechanics. There is nothing preventing a GM in a more modern system from running "Combat as War" all that is required is player creativity and an ability to respond to it. It just seems to be a crutch to distract from the fact that the actual game mechanics in OSR games for combat are repetitive and dull. OSR seems to pitch itself as a hardcore grim and gritty style of roleplaying, but it seems to me that its closer to story games, with barebones systems acting as minimum support for players trying to convince the GM to let them do whatever they want, with the results being down to GM fiat.
"Rulings over rules" does start with a lot of "Mother may I" but very quickly turns into a well defined homebrew system that the group collectively agrees on."Combat as War" works better for systems with very fast and easy character creation because, like war, it's very easy to fuck up and die. Ideally even the most complex level 1 character should be ready to go within 20 or so minutes, enough to hop right back into the session. Something that modern games don't do, seeing as they have very involved processes to make the most well customized character to your liking.On the surface I can see how you would come to that conclusion, I myself thought that as well. But what separates it is a very large emphasis on giving the players as much information as possible. It's what makes it not DM fiat if the players understand the mechanics for how likely certain creatures are to appear where and when. How to actually cross the dangerous mountains and how to prepare for that. A lot of OSR depends on player planning, more so than other games as without a wide variety of abilities to solve every situation, planning ahead is the best course of action.It's very easy to find a game to play and try it for yourself, unlike 5e for example there are more people who want to DM than play, since there are so many good DM facing tools to make running a game smooth.But, the main problem is that there is less of a guaranteed quality of group. Due to the less restrictive (and less in amount) rules, the ruling of each group can vary significantly, turning even OSE into two wildly different games between groups. This of course happens in 5e as well, but for a movement built around an interest in rules and ruling, it's more noticeable since in 5e differences come about between people who care about the rules and people who never even read the book.I would say it's worth trying. I tried, and the group I found wasn't too my liking, and I didn't have the time to keep pursuing it.
>Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?Yes, but not for any particular mechanical choices, just the overall attitude of "We're doing it the REAL way!"
>>93239231>I've been looking into OSR gamesWhat did you look at? The definitions have been so bastardized over the last decade its easy to get the wrong end of a game of telephone largely played by nerd grifters at this point.
>>93239231pretty much. everything OSR claims to offer is possible in any system, the main advantage OSR systems have is being an empty palette to fill with whatever you want.and even so, anyone who actually played TTRPGs in the past knows that it's inception is a wargame. the reason it was simple was not because "we can make up our own narrative!", it's because 7 people developed it, one had a brain and they had no large playerbase who was used to what have become standard practice in these games. there's is nothing old school about OSR.
>>93239231You're making standard charges, and there's standard responses. Probably easier if you dived a bit deeper and read through the debates in more detail, but I'll try to sum up.>The philosophy of rulings over rules seems to promote arbitrariness resulting in "Mother may I" and relying on GM fiat.On the one hand, absolutely true. You get a lot more inconsistency with OSR play because more is ruled on, in an ad-hoc basis. This is felt acceptable, because what is ruled on is material that's not already codified: i.e. non-core bits. So each GM can run things as they feel best for their table. Things like exploration and the combat rules and spell effects and so on are quite detailed.But beyond that, there's a general sense that all the rules upon rules of later editions just produce an inconsistent mush with a lot more burden for players and GMs, without producing any supposedly "neutral" result that people who tend to invoke "Mother May I" have deluded themselves into thinking they have. The madcap arbitrary OSR GM calls for a roll, and makes up the difficulty, applying whatever modifiers desired--madness. The fair and rulesbound D20 GM uses the DC system and makes up the DC, applying whatever modifiers desired--balance. The GM, as god, has all the power regardless of what the rules say or don't say. That the rules sometimes say something should work like X doesn't preclude any GM from saying otherwise if they feel like it, due to completely arbitrary fictional constraints suddenly imposed. You're always asking the GM for permission, whatever you do (unless you're playing some kind of narrative game where the players have power to shortcut the GM).
>>93239231>Is OSR Bullshit?Kinda, there are many things they mechanical cling to but add nothing to the games they make making much of the crunch pointless.The ones that annoy me the most is shit presentation like THAC0, no universal mechanics and convoluted bullshit.
>>93239231>>93239593>The oft lauded approach of "Combat as War" while it sounds exciting in theory, is falsely juxtaposed against "Combat as Sport" i.e. systems with actually engaging combat mechanics. There is nothing preventing a GM in a more modern system from running "Combat as War" all that is required is player creativity and an ability to respond to it.Here you've just outright misread: War vs Sport is a mindset conflict, rather than a rules one. That is, Sport comes from the modern idea that combat is just a resource tax set up designed so that the encounters are balanced against the party, who are intended to win. With that idea, you can just go into it fighting in a boring, straightforward way, knowing that 99/100 times you're not going to lose and that almost nothing is designed to really threaten you. Encounters are deliberate.War is based around the idea that the enemies are there because they're there. Encounters are a mixture of deliberate and random, but even when deliberate, you're not obligated to enter them. They've been placed in a very broad balance sense (e.g. you're not getting liches in level 1 areas), but there are absolutely encounters that outmatch you and require cleverness or the ability to retreat, and some that can be beat if you're smart but which will kill you if you try to fight it like Sport, and still others that when taken collectively will wear you down to the point that a "fair" encounter will kill you because you've pushed your luck too far and didn't have enough in the tank. In that light, you need to be ruthless and clever if you want to maximize your chances of survival and ability to push the farthest in any given delve, because there's no fixed number of encounters and balance has been at best eyeballed rather than run through a challenge rating or what have you.War and Sport play out completely differently on the tabletop. Neither is "better" than the other, but it's a totally different mindset and playstyle.
>>93239231The community can certainly seem like they're sniffing their own farts. I'd say about 85% are guys talking vaporware so that they can fit into the group or seem like they're "in" the inner circle. It's tiresome, sure. Shadowdark's discord is like this . BUT...as an OldAnon, I can tell you that if you can get people to sit down at the table and get into the groove of a minimalistic system and get players to use their fucking imaginations instead of looking at their character sheets to see what swell feat they can use to beat the monster and get attention for themselves, you'll have a great experience. Shadowdark's discord is rife with people who propose all sorts of bullshit to slowly turn it into 5e because they don't know how to imagine things. And they get shocked and dismayed when I inform them "Your character is dead. Roll a new one."
>>93239231>the actual game mechanics in OSR games for combat are repetitive and dull.They hated him because he told the truth.On this point, you're completely right; as far as combat mechanics go, 70's D&D is a boring ass game.> all that is required is player creativity and an ability to respond to itBut see, here's the rub. What you're describing as "creativity and responding to it," other people could just as easily describe as "Mother May I." So how do we make a distinction?
>>93239593>The fair and rulesbound D20 GM uses the DC system and makes up the DCAlready failed.
>>93239231>Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?Yes insofar as the differences between rules sets favoured by the OSR don't warrant the need for every flavour of them. Yes insofar as the meta analysis and mechanistic play style favoured by many can be seen as un-fun by newbies. No insofar as the artwork and vibe of most OSR stuff hands down strangles newer iterations of rpgs a lot of the time.No insofar as despite the hyper autism of some of these guys "my orcs are always this, my elves are always that," there is a lot to be said for having tables for everything, playing will put your character at real risk of death, and dedication to older heroic fantasy tropes does give games some form or flavour that is sorely missing,Many modern games feel like they exist in a kind of post Enlightenment world where due to the prevalence of funky Gnometech and loads of magic to go around, things are still kind of medieval but rather than having just better plumbing or medicine or a monthly airship dropoff they have mass transit, every place is cosmopolitan, liberalised etc. In some settings this can work but a lot of the time it kills the feeling of being an adevnturer in a low tech setting replete with dangerous creatures and magical treasure
>>93239231You're worried about OSR being bullshit and it is. That's it's strength. The key is that OSR is>1/10th Bullshit, 1d10 Parts great gamesOSR is just a set of tools, that have been refined to simplicity and elegance. The excess simply discarded until they fit the hand that wields them.>Grim and GrittyThis is only something that someone coming from 3.x or later (most likely later) trash would say. There is a universe that measures your health in hit points, if you loose all of your hit points you die. That's not grim, that's just how life works. Fighting is a quick way to lose hit points, maybe try to avoid it?>mother may IThere is a certain amount of this in any game. The thing is if you do away with this you make room for a tremendously entited dipshit of a player to emerge. I'd much rather have to Id maybe one entitled dip shit of a DM and bounce rather then half a dozen possible dipshits to see if a game is going to be worth playing. So the short story? Are you wrong>NoThese are real concerns, at a few tables they might even be problems>Are lots and lots of people having funYes, OSR for all of the 'problematic' old elements, brings tables and characters together. The rolls have meaning, the characters accomplish things, the Dm is invested, the story makes sense. It works, it's worked for 50 years. It's a game tradition honed by virtue of being first in a lot of ways by happenstance and then being further developed and played and enjoyed. It is the purest and best Dnd experience and one I will wholeheartedly recommend. Is it the only game ? or tradition ? No, but it's one of the best.
I've never hit the sweet spot of "combat as war".It's either too deadly to ever intentionally engage with (sometimes deliberately on part of the DM, since they know combat is boring as fuck), or turns into a looney tunes reenactment session, where the DM, afraid to discourage "creative play", lets the players defeat the enemies with all kinds of inane cartoony schemes.
>>93239231OSR is just D&D with attribute checks instead of skills. Some of the other rules are simplified, too. But strip classes down to a small group of powers that increase per level, and remove skills entirely in favor of "you succeed if you roll your attribute or under on a d20 plus or minus whatever modifiers I decide" and assume a more even distribution of what 3d6 attributes actually mean. That's functionally OSR.I think skills are unnecessary in D&D anyhow, so I'm fine with it.
WTF are you talking about? It sounds like you haven't read AD&D or even B/X. >>93240889>OSR is just D&D with attribute checks instead of skillWrong. Attribute checks are not OSR.
>>93240889That's a very bizarre read. A lot of OSR guys hate ability score checks, because they place all the emphasis on the random shit you rolled in the first five minutes of play rather than what you think up. It's a thing that crept into the game because it's easy but actually sucks if you're doing 100% random stat rolling with no fixed and readily available way to raise those stats (i.e. 99% of OSR games). They're not a core mechanic in classic old-school games.
>>93240976It's listed as an optional rule in B/X, but I agree, it's not a fantastic system.How do I not use it? Can I get some use cases?If a fighter wants to move a huge boulder, do I say he just does, or doesn't?Does his STR not matter?
>>93241540How huge is the boulder, how many are moving it, whats their total str? Do the have any contextual magic items or some smart guy who suggested a lever?
>>93241554Ah, but see, you say ''what is their total STR''.Do I just make up a number in my head and say ''OK it would take this much STR to push it'' and then tell them if they could or couldn't instead of rolling?
>>93241595Answer all the questions first. It's not a gotcha. The size of the boulder can be reasoned to the amount of str. This is not complicated, you just have to think it through.
>>93240863This. Do real SWAT teams throw pots and pans and soap at suspects instead of engaging them? No, they just fucking shoot them.
I mean ideally you can take ideas from most places
>>93240863>inane cartoony schemes.What kind of schemes, though? Can you give us some examples? Maybe it's not as bad as you're making it out to be.>>93241708In your example, the SWAT team would be the monsters, not the PCs.
>>93241708>>93240863Might be overfocusng on the combat is a failstate meme. War is rarely on ideal or chosen terms with optimal forces. You go to war with what you have. Might also be players not knowing when to advance towards the rear so you're letting them win via frying pan when they should learn how to run away.
>>93239231>Is OSR Bullshit? Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?Yes. That doesn't mean that the principles they claim to follow aren't worth considering. The only one that's truly bullshit is that you have to play some grifter's game to use them.
>>93240863Yeah man I never got that experience at all, combat was always a quick and brutal affair. Either that or it was an organized (or disorganized) retreat and sealing the room for a future exploration.
>>93239321>"Rulings over rules" does start with a lot of "Mother may I" but very quickly turns into a well defined homebrew system that the group collectively agrees on.Or the group just dissolves because all the CONSTANT lawyering and bickering and debating is way too fucking tedious and ruins the experience.
>>93239231Ironically they call 5e a "mother may I" system and then gloat over some perceived superiority
I just like adnd 1e man.
>>93239231>The philosophy of rulings over rules seems to promote arbitrariness resulting in "Mother may I" and relying on GM fiat.This is mechanically true of every game which doesn't embrace storygame mechanics of formal shared editorial authority over the game.It's not about being arbitrary. It's about the idea of a "GM as a Referee". Especially in the pre-VAR era, a Referee's job was to enforce the rules to the best of his ability AND to move the game along. Frankly, "rulings over rules" isn't a very important OSR principal in practice. It's a philosophy that can be applied to any game with Referee GM (which is to say, all the systems people actually play).>i.e. systems with actually engaging combat mechanicsCombat is often one of the most tedious parts of a RPG, and almost always grinds the adventure and session to screeching halt. TSR D&D has a number of mechanical properties that serve to make combat fast and feel decisive; and the severely limited combat actions compared to most games. These limitations, in my experience, encourage more lateral thinking - ie "combat as war". Subjectively, these are more fun and satisfying for players and Gm and faster to resolve than actually running the combat, so you can focus on the adventure.Not every game needs to be 4e or 3.PF>OSR seems to pitch itself as a hardcore grim and gritty style of roleplayingIt's about mechanical fidelity with TSR D&D. The artpunks and "grimdark brutality metal" came about a decade later.>it seems to me that its closer to story games, with barebones systems acting as minimum support for players trying to convince the GM to let them do whatever they want, with the results being down to GM fiat.Not in the slightest. What do you think is a storygame?
>>93241917You have to put in the context of late 3.5 and 4e, which had very particular encounter design about encounter challenge and frequency, as well as demanding interesting arenas to get the most out of their rules.
>>93239231>Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?It's a community and, by such, bounded to elitism by necessity in order to maintain a monolithic set of beliefs. It's not something inherently bad (or good) just something that naturally happens when defining a "style" and "Identity" of a particular way (of gaming in this case).>Inb4 but their way is a fabrication / historical revisionism / whateverYes, but really not. It's an interpretation of the game as extrapolated as potentially close to what was presented. The fact that people in the past may or may not have (or just partially) played in that way isn't factored, OSR is more "what is supposed to be and what would happen if that is the case" rather than "what was in the past".>Inb4 but in my (anecdotal) experience ALL osrfags are insufferable pieces of shit that affirm their way is the original and trve way!Implying isn't the case with any subculture following a defined set of beliefs, implying it isn't especially the case of nerdom in general. Look, i'm not saying you shouldn't feel annoyed by insufferable behaviours but you should be well aware that individual behaviour and philosophy aren't the same.Now to the actual gist of your post:I have seen recently that there's an attempt from someone to split from /osrg/ (/todd/ and /2eg/) and i'm going to bet that you are one of these anons. I have no problem with that but i want to make clear to you that it is painfully transparent that, instead of simply trying to form a general organically, you're trying your hardest to invalidate, with the whole board, whatever set of beliefs osrg (in specific) is enforcing that made you flip.>Inb4 why?Because you're using intellectually dishonest arguments for your case in this thread, one above all is GM fiat = storygame. Aside from the fact that, if you believe that's the case, then ALL ttrpg would be storygames, you're also bending what actual storygames are and how they function.
there's a good reason that /osrg/ is now banned from /tg/.
>>93243049Are you out of meds?
>>93239231It strikes me as an aesthetic and a reactionary rebellion against staples of modern gaming and not any kind of unified game design philosophy. Mork Borg is fairly abstract. Labyrinth Lord is a clone of old DnD. Dungeon Crawl Classics has fixtures of modern games like abilities that scale with you and luck points.
>>93239231>Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?yes
>>93239424spbp
>>93243059cope
>>93239231As an idea, OSR is fine. There is nothing wrong with looking at the old games (and the unspoken assumptions inherent in old games) or playing old shit.But as a movement, the weird dogmatism is pretty shitty, and it seems to attract a lot of tradcath larpers and "return to tradition" idiots.
>>93239231>There is nothing preventing a monopoly players from bluffing[.] All that is required is the ability to lie and hide your resources. It just seems to be a crutch to distract from the fact that the actual game mechanics in Skulls n Roses are repetitive and dull.Maybe actually play a game of it before criticising.
>>93239231>osr 2008-2012mostly retroclones because you couldn't get the originals >osr 2012-2018do your own game, just use the very basics of tsr games: class, level, no skills, ac and saves>osr 2019-current yeara bunch of christians invade the osr and make it really fundamentalist, it's all about cloning again with very minor differences and some millennial claiming it's a new genreyeah it's dead, completely calcified and not interested in anything new
>>93244510>yeah it's dead, completely calcified and not interested in anything new
>>93244510The historical revisionism here is nuts. >osr 2012-now >artfag invasion, internal purges and cancel culture inevitably makes it a wasteland after a brief creative era>actually creative makers move on >grifters and marks move in The push against that is the people who were already here. Watching the online nerd scene go through the entire 'punk' and tankie internal purges was amusing but predictable.
>>93239424This.No matter how much I agree with OSRfags, I hate them on principle.
>>93244510t. artpunk fag that ruined the scene with incessant flamewars and guntguarding Z*k's clique
>>93245058How can you hate dwarves
>>93245233Easily. Dwarves suck. What people forget after 20 generations of memes is that the 'dwarves are so cool, fuck yeah diggy hole hate elves drink beer my name is beardfist fistbeard' shit was originally done out of IRONY. Everyone knew dwarves sucked, pretending they didn't was the joke. But zoomers who inherited these memes didn't have context for them, so they couldn't understand that it was a joke. Now they think dwarves are somehow actually supposed to be cool and parrot the same shit we said in jest as if it were real.
>>93239231why not go to the /osr/ general and ask there?
>>93245723Not OP, but one of the reasons people don't always look for a general is because they want an open discussion involving people who aren't necessarily in the general. If all you do is categorize things and topics and people, eventually there will be no community.
>>93242187In my experience, lawyering and bickering was about the same between OSR and 5e. It's still the people that are the issue, not the game really.
>>93245568Which video essay did you hear that from, zoomer?
Probably smelling own farts fag here.I love my ongoing BX game. It's not so much the system as the guys playing with me, though. We've got a good DM who is 100% okay with us thinking well outside of the box and then trying to work within the system to determine how to resolve questions. The other players are pretty awesome. I can't say for sure that it's not the game itself that's fun, and that the rules just so happen to be the way that it takes shape.Although, I find elitist OSR-types some of the most insufferable people to talk to. What's weird is that if you specify a BECMI game, an OD&D game, etc. it doesn't have the same effect as "muh -oh-es-arrrr" does. I want to blame a lot of terrible marketing for that effect. It's like someone really started believing the tagline of "now you're doing it the REAL oLd-Sk00l Way!!!" as opposed to some of us just using simple systems because too many pages in a $50 book is just too much to deal with.
>>93239231I like TSR era D&D, it's my favorite paradigm of table-top game. I do not like OSR factionalism or game-theory. The problem is how the OSR guys seem to think they can claim some divine mandate over the stewardship of TSR era play so that if you begin at a starting point that is "OSR-compatible" but start bolting on mechanics or ideas that aren't OSR people will talk to you condescendingly about how you aren't really OSR. Which, no shit, I'm not trying to be OSR but I still like using AD&D as a base and foundation to build off of. The best place to discuss AD&D or b/x or OSR adjacent games is the OSR community but there is no place on the periphery to discuss ways to go beyond it and it gets frustrating. It's also hypocritical because there are rules options presented across old-school material that will get cut as being not really in the spirit of OSR but things which aren't OSR at all that will be adopted as in the spirit. - This last point is more of a modern issue and not really with the oldguard OSR types that just wanted to make an endless supply of heartbreaker shitbrews to recreate AD&D for the thousandth time so that might just be a symptom of the johnny-come-lately's having enough clout to push their weight around.I just want to play mostly-AD&D with some Traveler or WHFRP or Palladium mechanics bolted on every now and then when I think they're interesting without being called a FOE by a guy whose played less AD&D RAW than I have.
>>93246606Some of us have been on this earth long enough to know shit because we were there when it happened.
everyone just calls each other a zoomer>you're a zoomer>>nuh uh you're a zoomerit's cringewhen did /tg/ become like thisit wasn't always this way
>>93239231Yup, it's one of the biggest concentrations of nogames in the hobby. All those guys do is read rules and modules and then just imagine how cool it would be to use all those autistic rules.
>>93247247/tg/ has always been full of deeply insecure nerds who want to inflate the value of their own opinion and blame 'the youths' for low quality threads and discussion. The only thing thats changed since 2009 is the language we use to do so.Calling someone a zoomer and complaining about summer both really just mean the same thing.
>>93247302I do feel like I see more performative grog posturing these last couple of years, though I'm also willing to admit it's possible my tolerance for this kind of bullshit has worn thin.The comment about the youths in particular I find pretty interesting since I believe overall /tg/ has done an awful job of passing the torch to the next generation, which has lead to /tg/ reaping what it sowed in terms of the state of trpgs and wargames.
>>93245568That was the joke mayne
>>93247614I like the older art style more but most OSRfags just live to be upset all the time lol >didja hear they are doing this now
>>93247642mfw they made the d20 trans
>>93239231Yes but also noMuch of OSR was (self-)sabotaged by flanderized memes - "when in doubt make a ruling and keep the game moving instead of pulling out the rulebook" > "RULINGS NOT RULES""due to high lethality it's better to not engage in direct or fair fights but set ambushes or use bargaining" > "COMBAT IS A FAILURE STATE"
>>93247247Note how everyone is shifting to calling everyone grogs. Turns out namecalling based on subject position on an anonymous resin huffing board doesn't mean much.
>>93246532Its gameplay related. If the ratio of games played to posting gets too slanted towards posting, the quality of the general is fucked. Some memes and jokes and whatever are good but once it becomes more prevalent than discussing gameplay its a downward spiral. The more recent offshoot of /osrg/ jumped to it immediately, similarly to /nusrg/.
So was this an attempt to see how many actual osr posters there are now that poster count has been removed? 20ish it seems if so.
>>93248298God yes. Don't forget "Old D&D is much lighter in terms of rules complexity than modern versions" > "RULES LIGHT IS TRUE OLD SCHOOL"Ignore even B/X being 128 pages (let alone the PHB and DMG being 350+ pages): everything has to be 1- to 8-page hacks, chop out everything that makes a game old school so you can get true OSR cred as a game with no OSR in it.
>>93247247>>93247302Almost all imageboards are like that nowadays and they leak frequently. One day we're gonna have to settle that these places are just shitposting receptacles
>>93239231OSR bullshit in that the style of play has almost nothing to do with how the average Dungeons & Dragons game was back in that first decade of the game in the 70s/80s that they want to keep the rules within. However I don't think that many people active in OSR are actually deluded enough to think otherwise.
>>93239231>Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?Yes, but so is everyone that latches onto a specific genre and thinks it's innately superior.> but it seems like a lot of the hype around them lacks substance to it. The philosophy of rulings over rules seems to promote arbitrariness resulting in "Mother may I" and relying on GM fiat. It depends on what you mean by substance. The result of how many OSR systems are run by competent GMs, is that they end up essentially evolving into semi-homebrew systems tailored for particular groups or styles of play.There is substance in this, but it may simply not appeal to you.>There is nothing preventing a GM in a more modern system from running "Combat as War"There is nothing preventing a GM in a more OSR system from running "Combat as Sport", either. You can bend almost any system into doing anything with sufficient rule changes or alterations. The main thrusts of using a pre-made system, is that it can reduce the workload required to get that 'ideal' set of rules, it creates a sense of fair and consequential play, and it can often set a tone for a game.
>>93248028Like I see 1 tranny, usually on the train or in the city 1 time every 3 years lolI just don't care
>>93249227>The main thrusts of using a pre-made system, is that it can reduce the workload required to get that 'ideal' set of rules, it creates a sense of fair and consequential play, and it can often set a tone for a game.This is an artifact of 3.5 and 4e. Running those tactical arenas 1) takes a lot of prep time and 2) takes up a lot of session time and 3) encourages a more competitive mindset between players and GMs because you're in effect playing wargame. That style of play is pretty demanding on GMs.As a 3.5 fanboy, prepping those epic combat encounters that give you those amazing "only 3.5" moments is also a burden that scales exponentially at high levels. The limited options and faster pace (turns cycle faster with group initiative) are a breath of fresh air by comparison.
>>93249499I think you misunderstood me, as these aren't artifacts from any era, but inherent to game design.Having a system that's geared for whatever sort of combat or resolution methods, and is further geared towards the specific style and outcomes you want, will reduce the workload of changes and modifications you'll have to make to the rules. If you want tactical fights (Not that 3.X is good for them, since it's terribly shallow imho) with an emphasis on gamey decision-making, it'll be much less work to make the rules suit that in some systems than in others.Likewise, trying to run fast and more narratively driven fights in something like 3.X, will take much more work than it will in other systems.
>>93251002Combat as War/Sport is an artifact of the pre-LOTFP/artpunk OSR trying to pitch TSR D&D as a system that solved several pain points of 3.PF and 4e to GMs.
>>93251742Sure, but that's not what we're discussing.
>>93251758I thought we were, when we were talking about combat as war/sport. I think, when in 2012, it was a pitch to 3.PF and 4e DMs to consider TSR D&D and an explanation about why OSR guys liked older editions for the "meta combat".
>>93251826It wasn't even quoted in the post I was replying to.Personally, I've never really encountered people who categorize it in that way. I find approaches to combat are just a variable spectrum dependent on the GM. Some want a creative approach, some want it to be just like real life, some want it to be "just like real life", and some prefer the more arena/sport like approach, and mixtures of all the above.
>>93239231>Are the OSR community just sniffing their own farts?Yes, they're all a bunch of retarded zoomer hipsters pretending they know "what it was like" when in reality it's all pretentious bs.
>>93251837I don't think it's a good analysis of the differences between TSR and WOTC D&D, or combat encounter design more broadly; but I think it makes more sense in the context of 2012 ENWorld.
>>93239231>"Mother may I" and relying on GM fiat.If you don't trust your GM to make good decisions, then don't play with them. If you don't trust ANY GM as much as your rulebook, play video games.
>>93249227>You can bend almost any system into doing anything with sufficient rule changes or alterations.That you can make a game of the imagination into a different game by changing the rules is not a particularly interesting or useful statement. You are going to at best from here pedantically narrow in on >preventto the extent where if there aren't actual chains and violence making you not do it, it can be anything you want. System design for different styles of gameplay, as you already outline >>93251002does indeed present impediments to playing games in certain ways.
>>93251913Actually, there's an entire genre of games for these people. Forge and post-Forge storygames. Don't like the GM's call, use meta-mechanics to override it.
>>93251912Alright.
>>93240956>Wrong. Attribute checks are not OSR.Attribute checks are a thing in B/X.
>>93239231Yes if we're talking the tradfags on /osrg/, no if we're talking "people who like old-school D&D because it's simpler to GM" or "people making new games inspired by old-school feel". Very different groups. The latter is chill and is reminiscent of old /tg/ DIY energy, the former is bitches who didn't catch the memo that edition wars aren't a thing anymore.
