Oldest of Schools
I almost feel like I should start this blog with: not to crap on the Old School Renaissance, but…
I honestly don’t really have strong feelings about the OSR, be it the Renaissance or Revival. Probably because, at 40, I’m still too young to have played the games that inspired the OSR. I got into role-playing games with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, which was a good decade and two revolutions of gameplay from the style of play emulated with OSR, which was based around the 1981 Red Box and the adventures released prior to the first Dragonlance module, Dragons of Despair in 1984.
Now, it’s absolutely fine for people to enjoy OSR games and I’m not going to tell anyone they’re playing the game wrong. If it works for you, the OSR is A-OK. But I’ve also seen a few OSR publishers and gamers lamenting the fact that D&D 5e is so popular and their own products aren’t selling or that they aren’t seeing increased success despite the popularity of D&D. And that bugs me.
It’s absolutely fine to sell niche products. It’s totally fine to sell artisanal salak and durian jams. But you can’t also complain when people opt to instead buy some Smucker’s raspberry.
OSR games are totally fine. But they are a niche game. Heck, they are sub-sub niche game. They’re not just competing with Dungeons & Dragons as an RPG or even as a fantasy RPG but competing with D&D as d20-based generic fantasy RPGs with classes, high magic, and the same basic gameplay. Many can’t even add a flavour rider to differentiate them, like “dark fantasy” or “faerie tale fantasy”. The stories one tells in an OSR game are largely identical to the stories you tell with D&D, it’s how they’re played that is different. And that alone makes it a hard sell.
I don’t blame new players for jumping into the old-school band-wagon. 5e is really easy to run and get into, as well as providing more character options, and has rules that encourages role-playing and character motivation (beyond just killing and looting monsters). The old rules are not the most intuitive, and the OSR market is awash with core rule books.
Also, those guys are being a little silly, as Wizards of the Coast has the branding and recognition behind them: The words “Dungeons & Dragons” outshines the vary concept of tabletop role-playing to mainstream ears. On the other hand, a title like “Labyrinth Lord” sounds like an old 8-bit computer game, and “OSRIC” sounds like a vintage computer system. (I’m not ragging OSR. I’m just talking as someone who loves old-school games, including the games I just named-dropped, as well as the 5e rules.)
Where the OSR really shines is where it needs the aforementioned “flavour rider”. You’ll find a wide range of fictional genres and highly novel settings, often sporting an “Appendix N” (bibliography section) to works of films, literature and even whole genre most folk never heard of, but to find the good ones, you REALLY have to dig around. There are a number great supplements floating out there, like Petty Gods or The Metamorphica, that can be retooled for 5e play or picked apart for gaming ideas. Yes, its going down a deep rabbit hole, but more often than not, you get more out of a voyage than what awaits at the destination. (I’ve seen…things…you people wouldn’t believe. Something-something…C-beams. Something-something…Tannhäuser Gate.)
Sure there are grandparents. I would be if my son would have decided to have kids.