The Lifespan of the OSR and what it means

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Jared Rascher
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The Lifespan of the OSR and what it means

Post by Jared Rascher »

https://knighterrantjr.blogspot.com/202 ... ments.html

I wrote this, because it's been bouncing around my head for a while, and I'm kind of braced for any response I get for this. I'll summarize thusly:

When the OSR first showed up, I think you could legitimately say, "This is about preserving things that older games valued that are not evident in the wider hobby today."

I think now, it has evolved to, "This is about preserving EXACTLY how older games did a subset of things, even though the wider hobby has adopted ways of doing much of this in modern games."
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zircher
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Re: The Lifespan of the OSR and what it means

Post by zircher »

Nah, I think it is about the feel as well. There are modern games designed with the OSR feel. Not everyone has the time for system mastery like in the old days, but they like how the games were run and the ethos of it. Not an expert, of course, but I'm in a number of groups that dabble in the OSR and I get a pretty broad spectrum of what people are talking about.
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Emmett
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Re: The Lifespan of the OSR and what it means

Post by Emmett »

Maybe to be more charitable, the OSR seems to be interested in keeping the systems in games simple and figuring out ways to stretch the existing system functionality without adding to the actual game by making it apply as content (story content).

I think the driving force is older gamers that want to use the investment they have in philosophy that they've built up over the years. I don't begrudge anyone for wanting to reduce their "cost" of entry even if I don't like the effect the movement has.
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