OSR: what is it even

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JRT said:
Could somebody answer a question for me?

What was it about Google Plus that attracted gamers, particularly those in the OSR category? I ask because I saw G+ like most folks saw it, a social network attached to Google products and not really doing all that much more than the others. Was it because a lot of users were already using Blogspot for their blogs?
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  • Founders Effect is the main reason.
  • Minorly its integration with Blogger.
  • It was sustained by the fact that Circles were easier to track, manage, and get into than Facebook Groups and Friends.

JRT said:
And then, why did G+ dissolution cause an issue with the conversations -- I'd assume it would be easy to move them elsewhere. Was it just because nobody could agree where to go? Was it because the movement itself splintered into factions?
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Everybody made their own decision as to where to take their social media stuff. Plus Facebook the main competitor had nothing like Google Circles. Their friend list was and remains a poor substitute. Facebook Groups operate more like walled gardens like forums.
 
Endless Flight said:
Twitter is where it’s at now. You can spend hours a day arguing about what Gary Gygax was trying to do with AD&D’s initiative rules.
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Meh, we have been doing that for years on other forums (Dragonsfoot and Knight n Knaves) as well as various discord groups.
 
Google+ was smaller than Facebook. Smaller communities make for better discussion.

Google+ circles in addition to being easier to use and manage, also were one way relationships. I could put you in my circle that I shared content X with, without you having to join a group.

Google+ also did better at keeping responses in order so it was easier to follow a conversation.

Yes, MeWe was offered up as a replacement. While some folks are still active on MeWe, it's a tiny group and not particularly growing. I follow a handful of people on MeWe and post little there.

This community is the closest I've found to the Google+ community.
 
sharps54 said:
If you enjoy arguing on the internet it is quite the tasty subject :wink:
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ffilz said:
Google+ was smaller than Facebook. Smaller communities make for better discussion.

Google+ circles in addition to being easier to use and manage, also were one way relationships. I could put you in my circle that I shared content X with, without you having to join a group.

Google+ also did better at keeping responses in order so it was easier to follow a conversation.

Yes, MeWe was offered up as a replacement. While some folks are still active on MeWe, it's a tiny group and not particularly growing. I follow a handful of people on MeWe and post little there.

This community is the closest I've found to the Google+ community.
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I think this is a good summary. Also it was possible to share circles with new users (at least for a while).
I remember when I joined I got lots of contacts that way. This led to cross-fertilisation of rpg contacts.

Also the reason I joined was because the storygames.com admins were getting overloaded and encouraged a move.
There was also a feeling that forums were losing a lot of traffic to social media. The mix with OSR was not
unusual as there were lots of OSR threads on storygames.com towards the end.
 
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robertsconley said:
Not to the extent that the OSR relied on it. Prior efforts still relied on the traditional publisher, distributor, and game stores for the bulk of the sales. Digital sales (PDFs) were something additional not the primary means of distribution as it was for the OSR.
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You're skipping the decade between traditional publishing and the OSR came around that I was talking about. The massive amount of online content created before the OSR, mostly before even PDFs were a thing. Hundreds of RPGs and clones.
 
TristramEvans said:
You're skipping the decade between traditional publishing and the OSR came around that I was talking about. The massive amount of online content created before the OSR, most even PDFs were a thing. Hundreds of RPGs and clones.
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My point is that the OSR as a niche started out online, grew online in terms of hobby and industry, and remains largely an online niche. Everybody else prior to the OSR who got serious about their project shifted their focus to getting their stuff into the traditional publisher-distributor-store channel. Sure there was stuff on-line but nobody who wanted to professionally publish relied solely on on-line sales in the way the OSR as a whole did. Now it is commonplace for many niches of the hobby.
 
Mankcam said:
Shadowdark gets thrown in as OSR or 'OSR-adjacent'. The mechanics resemble a stripped down version of WotC D&D rather than TSR D&D, although it's aesthetic trappings are emulating early D&D and other early rpgs.
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The main thing Shadowdark takes from WotC D&D is rolling d20s vs a DC. Dungeon Crawl Classics uses the same core system (and lots more from WotC D&D, including the saves system), and it seems pretty widely accepted as an OSR game.

I take a big tent attitude towards the OSR. The main thing for me isn’t the particulars of the mechanics, but the type of gameplay it fosters. In that respect, games like Shadowdark and Into the Odd, etc fit comfortably inside the tent.
 
'OSR' or 'OSR-adjacent' - the later is not a term that has been used on forums in recent times to describe trpgs that have the OSR vibe, yet are not retroclones or diverge somewhat with several of the core mechanics from the TSR D&D model

The core mechanic of 'D20 Roll Over TN' used across the board for all core characteristics, saves, skills, etc is a trademark of WotC D&D rather than TSR D&D, and I've seen the 'OSR-adjacent' term applied to DCC, Into The Odd, Shadowdark, etc because of this.

Monkey-see, Monkey-do, heh heh

But it's splitting hairs,
it's definately all one big tent to me
 
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Excluding something because it uses unified “d20-roll-high against a target number” mechanics is hair-splitting pedantry. There are mechanical influences from d20 & 5E that are (IMO) contrary to the “OSR spirit” but it’s not that, rather its stuff like balancing everything around combat (so that every class is equivalently capable in combat and they only use different tactics), giving spell casters infinitely spammable 0-level spells and non-casters a bunch of limited use special abilities that are de facto spells, abstracting stuff like investigations and puzzle solving and negotiation into die rolls, minimizing resource management concerns, and so on. That kind of stuff is way more indicative to me of whether or not a game “feels like OSR” then what you roll for a saving throw or to open a stuck door.
 
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Black Vulmea said:
Noisms has an interesting data point to consider: The OSR is Much, Much Bigger Than You Think

View attachment 81531

Another thought: this explains why tabletop roleplaying games in general continue to be a going concern.
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Voros said:
I've read that the 96 percent claim is bullshit.
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Hopefully it is BS:thumbsup:!

...Because if it's not, you're talking about "print runs comparable to those in Bulgaria", and that would be nothing but shocking given the differences in population:shock:!
 
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