tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post1942369332837983303..comments2024-03-28T10:05:22.800-06:00Comments on Simulacrum: Exploring OSR Design: A Historical Look at the OSR — Part IVUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-70705363415486232522021-12-21T09:32:51.512-07:002021-12-21T09:32:51.512-07:00A very welcome post, as there seemed to be a growi...A very welcome post, as there seemed to be a growing number of accounts of how the OSR started, sometimes flavoured with self-interest. You have the endorsement of Trent, who surely was in the Blue Bottle Saloon in Wichita (to paraphrase Unforgiven) when this happened.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-32059427325030923952021-10-13T15:23:53.585-06:002021-10-13T15:23:53.585-06:00Much obliged, thanks.Much obliged, thanks.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-80487557171984822712021-10-09T10:23:35.658-06:002021-10-09T10:23:35.658-06:00FYI, Rob Kuntz Pied Piper Publishing forum is stil...FYI, Rob Kuntz Pied Piper Publishing forum is still available at this link https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/ where it was moved to when tapatalk bought out the old platform host.Halenar Frosthelm™, The Perilous Dreamer™https://www.blogger.com/profile/03872120077602032749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-10515287662253386702021-07-25T15:37:23.070-06:002021-07-25T15:37:23.070-06:00Oh yes: it's a draft of about 7,500 words righ...Oh yes: it's a draft of about 7,500 words right now. But its slow going as its a more complicated area than the previous posts. I hope to get it out by the end of the year.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-11430145686408828702021-07-25T08:08:20.361-06:002021-07-25T08:08:20.361-06:00Will there be part V? ;)Will there be part V? ;)Alitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13997440783189110155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-28375266978701972112021-06-27T17:05:29.751-06:002021-06-27T17:05:29.751-06:00Awesome, thanks acodispo.Awesome, thanks acodispo.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-91147369149989436612021-06-26T09:54:38.753-06:002021-06-26T09:54:38.753-06:00Here's that old post, Trent & Keith, in ca...Here's that old post, Trent & Keith, in case you're interested:<br /><br />https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6938&p=104407&hilit=old+school+revival#p104407<br /><br />This appears to be the first mention of "old-school revival" on Dragonsfoot (Aug 2004). And it predates the other anonymous reference to an "old school Renaissance" by a full year.<br /><br />Reading the post, you do appear to be referring to a pre-existing phrase, but it's the earlier reference I've been able to dig up so far, so you deserve some credit. :)<br /><br />FYI, I've been digging through this stuff to find citations for the Wikipedia page:<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_School_Revival#Terminologyacodispohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18249613532633865205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-85809790638724535332021-05-23T11:09:06.134-06:002021-05-23T11:09:06.134-06:00My goal was to chart the evolution of D&D rath...My goal was to chart the evolution of D&D rather than the evolution of the game industry as a whole (which would have required a ton of additional research and ultimately would have distracted from the main issue). I'm not claiming that everything that D&D did was 100% original and outside of wider game industry concerns (well, outside of the origins of the industry itself, of course). And something like Call of Cthulhu is definitely going to go its own way, having fundamentally different design goals: I don't deny that. No doubt D&D was influenced by other design trends, but there was nothing compelling it to do so, and in that light charting what it chose to adopt vs what it didn't is significant, and all of that can be examined without arguing that D&D was a leader or a follower with a particular trend.<br /><br />That having been said, in Part II I do make some nods to the wider industry in my discussion of skill systems, with FGU's Bunnies & Burrows game.<br /><br />Thanks for your reply, and glad you're enjoying the posts.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-63565090678785376662021-05-22T08:33:45.938-06:002021-05-22T08:33:45.938-06:00Thank you for your historical approach to D&D ...Thank you for your historical approach to D&D and its evolution!<br /><br />My only quibbles have to do with the omission of all those other games in which the innovations occurred that you identify as pulling D&D from its early state. TSR itself was publishing not just D&D but games like Star Frontiers and Indiana Jones in the period you indicate as divergent. Call of Cthulhu had mystery games with linear formats long before the Curse of Xanathon. The modules for these games were not "sandboxes," a term that had not even been coined then, anyway. Similarly, skills first appear in Empire of the Petal Throne, and they were in full flower in plenty of other games. D&D was a late adopter. If D&D diverged, it was because the whole hobby had diverged already. Plenty of gamers did not choose between old editions and later ones: they just chose other games, none of which you mention, as far as I can tell! But when it comes to D&D itself, I think your posts offer great coverage.Tom Van Winklehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00498476328377801884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-58648361607737555332021-05-21T22:17:55.620-06:002021-05-21T22:17:55.620-06:00Sounds good. Take care of yourself, and enjoy othe...Sounds good. Take care of yourself, and enjoy other endeavors in the meantime. I'm happy to be patient.Tim Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07682826627977565611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-24690886003259440232021-05-21T08:39:15.357-06:002021-05-21T08:39:15.357-06:00Thank you. :) It will be a while still, in part be...Thank you. :) It will be a while still, in part because it's the hardest one to write (despite dealing with the most recent material), as it's so fragmented and so much has been wiped away, but also because I take breathers once in a while to do other things (like Battletech, one of my other big loves, which I freelance for and is eating my time right now). But it will happen.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-39433303035995483422021-05-20T15:34:42.939-06:002021-05-20T15:34:42.939-06:00This series has been great! I'm looking forwar...This series has been great! I'm looking forward to the final installment.Tim Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07682826627977565611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-25568579483908108072021-03-29T10:27:55.162-06:002021-03-29T10:27:55.162-06:00You should (hopefully) be able to find early discu...You should (hopefully) be able to find early discussion of using the OGL to produce 1E-compatible adventures - at Dragonsfoot even if the Pied Piper forums are no longer accessible - but the pre-OSRIC development of Monsters of Myth and Hoard of Delusion (and the never-released anthology) all took place in a closed/invitation-only workshop forum attached to the K&K Alehouse and was intentionally kept on deep background (because there was a lot of paranoia) so you probably won't find much contemporary discussion, but you may find some mentions post-OSRIC of how those things started out (and if you look at Monsters of Myth you'll definitely see some art dated 2004 and 2005).<br /><br />As for the OSR thing, yeah, it's weird to think that I may be the one who coined that. I don't think I was and certainly wasn't doing so intentionally, but several people have done searches and apparently I'm the first non-anonymous person to use that phrase in a public forum so maybe I did? It really took off with Calithena's "Fight On!" magazine in 2008 (which billed itself as "a journal of the Old School Renaissance" or something similar) but I know he was picking up a phrase that was already in common use on forums, and maybe I really was one of the first people to use it. If so, like I said, weird.Trenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01889179660165006042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-20194945023199963212021-03-27T19:36:40.121-06:002021-03-27T19:36:40.121-06:00Thanks for the kind words and the pointers to furt...Thanks for the kind words and the pointers to further material. I'm going to do some further digging into the things you mention and, assuming I can find the appropriate sources, perform a few updates to the article (also, I didn't realize that the origin of Horde of Delusion was that far back).<br /><br />I also have to admit I chuckled a little when I realized that it may have been you that coined the term "old-school renaissance" in a way that anyone noticed. We've never interacted online, but I've been reading Dragonsfoot and K&K for quite a while, and considering how those two largely came to feel about the OSR as a whole, you being the one that perhaps branded it seemed rather ironic.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-29921510351240165392021-03-26T12:14:30.085-06:002021-03-26T12:14:30.085-06:00"Long-time poster T. Foster" here. This ..."Long-time poster T. Foster" here. This is good, thorough, and accurate stuff. <br /><br />One thing to add is that there were rumblings (I think the Pied Piper Publishing forums were where this mostly happened) about the feasibility of using the OGL to release modules with "wrong" (i.e. 1st edition) stats as far back as 2002 because folks weren't satisfied with the Necromancer Games approach or the Hackmaster "mandatory comedy" shtick. When Troll Lord Games announced C&C (with Gygax on board) in 2003 that talk died out and the old-edition fans invested their enthusiasm in that effort, but it picked back up again once C&C was actually released and turned out to be more d20-like than we had hoped for. <br /><br />Considerable work was done in 2004-05 on a trio of such "crypto-1E" OGL supplements - an anthology of short adventures, a larger sandbox setting, and a book of monsters - before Matt Finch came up with the idea of "the clone game" and sold the rest of us on it. The anthology was never released but I believe all of the content destined for it was (at Dragonsfoot, in Fight On! magazine, and elsewhere). The monster book - Monsters of Myth - was released shortly after OSRIC, branded as OSRIC-compatible as a sort of proof of concept. The sandbox adventure (Hoard of Delusion) languished incomplete for more than a decade before finally being released in 2020. <br /><br />So originally this stuff would've fit in alongside the other items mentioned in your note #7, until Matt Finch proposed something more radical and ambitious that became OSRIC.<br /><br />Along those lines, it's also probably worth mentioning that in addition to its forums Dragonsfoot has also been releasing pdfs of old-D&D-compatible content (adventures, supplements, and Footprints magazine) non-stop since 2000, without relying on the OGL. But since their material is all pdf-only and all given away for free (both of which were felt to be important to minimize legal risk) that wasn't a solution that was satisfactory to people who wanted to see a more prominent and visible "renaissance" of the old-school editions, which is why they started looking into how to use the freedom afforded by the OGL to achieve that.Trenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01889179660165006042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-10456745000406236922021-03-21T10:42:57.840-06:002021-03-21T10:42:57.840-06:00That's very kind, but while I did it because n...That's very kind, but while I did it because no one else had, ultimately it's all just public domain sources put together: there's nothing secret or otherwise hard to acquire here. I also like the idea of being able to revise it as I discover new sources or new material appears in interviews and the like (I made some minor edits to the LL section and conclusion today, for example). But I'm delighted that people are finding it useful.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-74990596420002421442021-03-21T08:49:33.150-06:002021-03-21T08:49:33.150-06:00Agree with the posts above, this series is an exce...Agree with the posts above, this series is an exceptionally well-researched and well-written historical look at the OSR.<br /><br />You should consider publishing it once it's complete. I would purchase it in order to have all of the posts collected in a single handy document.paleologoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02640356065053822793noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-15076937338605009552021-03-20T07:03:08.267-06:002021-03-20T07:03:08.267-06:00Bravo, well doneBravo, well doneAdrian Hammerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13204975261167989318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-1135052373602788322021-03-18T16:11:19.830-06:002021-03-18T16:11:19.830-06:00Fantastic article. Looking forward to the final on...Fantastic article. Looking forward to the final one. Victory Fishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09380761684048839822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-63184170228460536232021-03-18T05:22:06.755-06:002021-03-18T05:22:06.755-06:00I hadn't realized BFRPG actually came out befo...I hadn't realized BFRPG actually came out before OSRIC, that's really interesting. Chris Gonnerman has done a remarkable service to RPG gamers - somewhat outdated layout aside, BFRPG still stands among the best of the B/X-alikes - and for free to boot! Matt Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03301070414722134097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-78650761012148784912021-03-17T22:45:31.656-06:002021-03-17T22:45:31.656-06:00Glad you're enjoying it.Glad you're enjoying it.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-80730795188912674582021-03-17T21:16:35.367-06:002021-03-17T21:16:35.367-06:00This is a very interesting and extremely thorough ...This is a very interesting and extremely thorough series. Thanks!Skerpleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06393779599461560431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-87540587077960698652021-03-17T11:29:01.245-06:002021-03-17T11:29:01.245-06:00Thanks: I appreciate it.Thanks: I appreciate it.Keith Hannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11340239903203020361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7445677764566060773.post-12927602128888837402021-03-17T04:57:10.885-06:002021-03-17T04:57:10.885-06:00Just wanted to leave a quick note to say I find th...Just wanted to leave a quick note to say I find this whole series, and this post in particular, very impressive and interesting.kaeruhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03422660661902905607noreply@blogger.com