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Tuesday 7 June 2016

How Some Factions of the OSR Actually Erase the Past They Claim to Treasure


The worst thing about the OSR-Taliban is that they make the past so fucking tiny.

They reduce the huge variety and possibility that was happening in the Old-School period into playing ONE edition of D&D in ONE particular style (which was by far not the most popular style, I should note). And use absurd interpretations of "scripture" to justify it.

After the last couple of days' responses to my blog entries, no one has the right to question my calling them the "Taliban" again. They have exactly the same goal: to go back in time and wipe out all the wide variety and diversity and innovation and change and just say that one tiny sliver of the past is the one and only truth, and worse, pretend that's all there ever was.

But Old-school can be bleeding edge gaming, if we let it. Tons of 3rd-wave OSR games have proven that, completely contrary to the perspective of the OSR-Taliban, if we open up our minds about how you can play D&D and what you can do with it mechanically (instead of looking for some mythical purity), we have hardly just begun to explore how far you can take old-school D&D

And ironically, this latter point of view is WAY closer to how people actually thought and felt in the old-school era. To quote someone else who, unlike J. Maliszewski, was actually fucking there:


" I started playing in 1978. Every gamastermaster I knew was strictly Anti-Gygax and we ALL created our own rules systems. So it's kind of laughable to me having been there to hear people claim that there was only one version of The Beginning. "


Admiration for Gary Gygax grew over the years, organically, in part because as he got older he became less of an asshole.  Slavish Adoration of Appendix N emerged almost overnight, when Internet Fraud James Maliszewski invented the idea that this appendix is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF D&D by pulling it out of his own ass. Look at conversation on the internet about D&D, even old-school D&D, before that, NO ONE was talking about appendix N. It is not a long cherished legacy of our hobby, it is like a Mullah having taken some obscure line in one of the secondary sayings of the Prophet and declaring this to be the justification for his own personal jihad against any style other than the one he thinks will best suit his own gain.

In the REAL old-school era, people weren't obsessing about how to keep D&D "pure".  Just the fucking opposite: they were going nuts with creativity. They were so excited about making new worlds, changing up the rules, inventing new systems, with FUCKING CHANGING STUFF.

THAT is what old-school is all about: creativity and innovation. Not 'purity' and backward-looking elitism. The OSR shouldn't be about picking apart apocryphal minutiae and trying to let the wise men amongst us decipher for all the rest of us "what gary really meant" by it so we can all go play in that same pure way. The OSR should be about taking a set of rules, a set of limits, and seeing just how much crazy stuff we can do within those limits. We shouldn't be going backward until there's no further backward to go; we should be looking at all the cutting-edge potential D&D had in that early era, and realizing that we have barely even started to push the limits of what you can do with it. 


The OSR has to decide: it's either a Nostalgia Cult, or a design movement.  It can't be both at the same time.

Actually, fuck that. The OSR HAS decided. The success of products like Red Tide, Arrows of Indra, Yoon Suin, Slumbering Ursine Dunes, the Islands of Purple-haunted Putrescence, and yes, Dark Albion (as well as many, many more) has made it very clear that the Nostalgia Cultists have lost. We don't need JMal or his followers pretending to have Gygax's Authority to tell us all how to play Old-School.


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Neerup Egg + Image Virginia

44 comments:

  1. lots of the oldschool groups like FB when smaller were about crowd sourcing ideas and comparing mutations - four years later i quit most of those groups with 10 000+ members who just boast about collections, tell shitty jokes and compare latest purchases and praise minutiae of the prophets

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  2. I think you can respect and cherish what has come before while embracing the amazing works that are being released now.

    It doesn't HAVE to be one or the other, but there are certainly some forums that wish it were.

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    1. There's a difference between respecting and cherishing, and venerating it with an orthodoxy that rewrites the past. Again, part of the problem is that this part of the OSR has revised and erased a lot of the real old-school history, of how people played, and what people liked, and how they viewed things back then.

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    2. No two groups played alike from my own personal experience but all groups played many different RPGs. That large library of games seems to be forgotten by many.

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  3. Of course people are going to take this post completely out of context but you have several good points as well. Nice post Pundit and keep up the good works.

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  4. Can't say I ever gave a poop about how Gary Gygax played...if anything his apparent style sounds abysmal to me. But 1978? Johnny come lately.

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  5. Great point RPGPundit. I'm not sure who the OSR Taliban are, but if they truly think that there was only one way of play, then they're looking back with not only with rose colored glasses, but down a whole different timeline.

    I remember growing up in Omaha in the early 80s how most of the DMs did not follow the rules slavishly at all. Quite the contrary. It was a sign of a good DM if he was able to put his own spin on the core system. the only time were the rules followed to a T were in RPGA sanctioned tournaments, and i only participated in one. It was fun, challenging, but that was it. Innovative? Nah.

    there was one DM I recall when going to the local game club in La Vista, NE. I don't remember his real name, just his nickname: Gonzo. His world was called "Gonzo's World". i still have my character from his campaign, way back in the 80s.

    Gonzo, like many other DMs, wanted to put their particular spin on the AD&D rules. Try different things out. Shit, some guys even tried to port stuff from other game systems. Plus, the club had made their own little booklet of original critical and fumble tables, random weird treasures, and other crazy stuff.

    It was a time of innovation, experimentation, and creativity. Was it all perfect? Heck no! Did we follow the rules all the way? Nope! I don't disparage anyone looking back with nostalgia. I do. D&D changed my life for the better. But to rewrite the history that everyone played one way is a bald faced lie.

    "what are you playing tonight?"

    "In Gonzo's game."

    "Cool man. His D&D game is pretty cool."

    I have to admit, when James M was around, I thought his blog was pretty cool...right up until he fleased everyone for money not following up on Dwimmermount. Yes, he had stuff going on in his life. Who doesn't. but hit bit off more than he could chew. He fucked up. Did he man up and say "yes, i fucked up"? No. And that's what grinds my gears about him.

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    1. Each group I played in played a bit differently. We also played each and every RPG that we came across. It was all "D&D" to outsiders, but Traveller, RQ, RM, CoC, Paranoia - the list goes on.

      All of those games are old school to me and something that should be embraced by the OSR. I didn't meet a single gaming group that only played D&D in my Junior High, High School or College Days. We plaed them all.

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    2. Same thing where I grew up too. Traveller, Champions, and V&V were real big. CoC not so much. Actually, I think I was the only guy playing it with other people. There were also a few DMs who were innovative enough to design their own systems and have us try them out. Some were ok, some were...well...weird.

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    3. @blackstone: LaVista, NE in the 80s??? Man, that's where I grew up, too! Was your local game club held at Star Realm, by chance? I don't know this Gonzo of whom you speak, so I suspect we ran in different circles, but man, what a crazy coincidence! But yeah, I don't remember any kind of "purity" either. Just a lot of different people doing their own unique things.

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    4. Yep. Ran with that same gang at Star Realm: John Stuart, Len, Lonnie, etc. Bill and Sandy were like second family! remember the Car Wars group we had there? Norman McMullin, the head the the group, NOVA? We also went to the La Vista rec center where there was a gaming club. That's where I was referring to Gonzo. So more than likely we ran with alot of the same crowd. Small world huh?

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  6. But... I don't see anyone in the comments of the blog posts you linked to that really fit what you're calling "OSR-Taliban". (By the way, that's just as tasteless as people who liken certain American presidential candidates to Hitler.) You have nothing specific, no specific individuals named except for James Maliszewski, and no links to particular posts where he talks about this.

    Have you constructed a straw man?

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    1. I've had debates about this with people, on theRPGsite and elsewhere, since around 2007. So no, it's not a strawman. I've had people say I'm not old-school, my games aren't old-school, and that the way I played in the actually pre-2e era was somehow 'not old-school' or 'not correctly played old-school'.

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    2. Well, you're not old school...didn't you start playing in the 90s or something? No shame in that.

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    3. No, I started playing in the 80s, with the red box Basic set and AD&D 1e.

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    4. Where did you get the idea I started in the 90s??

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    5. Must be my mistake, I thought you mentioned that one time on this blog. Maybe you are older than I thought. I didn't start till around 1981-1982.

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    6. Go to dragonsfoot and just start reading. I don't think this is a strawman really.

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  7. oldschool to me is about making your own stuff and being creative is the norm - newschool slaves to new product and commercial settings and wary of non code ideas. They are worse than this "taliban" you speak of (any examples you can find of these guys? where is the rock they hide under?)

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  8. 1980. I was there and the Pundit is right. Read early A&E fanzines and you will see. What is also true is that this split started with EGG and 1e AD&D.

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  9. 1980. I was there and the Pundit is right. Read early A&E fanzines and you will see. What is also true is that this split started with EGG and 1e AD&D.

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  10. I started in 1975 and before Holmes you HAD to do it yourself--there was nothing written that actually told you how to play. Even after that the sources--even EGG himself--said you could do whatever you want. Even with the increase of material with the release of AD&D it was still very DIY. The codification started pretty soon after that. There were, of course, Mullahs from the start, but I was there and everyone had their own style. That was more true than not. I don't know how these Orthodox nuts remember it, or what they did. But I don't see how they could look back and really remember One True Way ®. I remember it as a time of swashbuckling creative freedom. One guy I played with for years had a campaign and we were never really sure whether he was using Traveller or AD&D, but we were having too much fun to worry about it.

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  11. I think by setting the lines up so hard, the nuances are erased.

    I for one am thankful for the 'Appendix N' fad - It introduced me to amazing wordsmiths and worldbuilders like Vance, and CA Smith and great story tellers like Zelazny, Moorcock, Anderson and Lieber. And meeting those guys have given me a much richer and varied vision of what fantasy can be.

    And frankly, I *like* a bit of nostalgia. There is a certain fascination with looking at fantasy gaming of that era - Mostly because the genre of fantasy itself often hearkens to such feelings.

    That said, I do agree that the tendency to approach all this as museum curators, to elevate a certain style of play as being somehow more old school than others, celebrating what was frankly not a terribly well designed system as someting 'canon' is fundamentally stifling and something the OSR can leave behind.

    But to discard the body of literature found in appendix N in the name of tearing down the pedestal of gygaxianism? That is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

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    1. I don't discount the literature (well, not all of it! I find it, like most sci-fi/fantasy, a mixed bag of quality). I only discount how significant that appendix is to old-school play.

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    2. In between Appendix N being the fibonacci sequence of D&D and it being 'mostly' useless is a large tract of opinion though.

      I don't subscribe to either pov, but I do find the literature of Appendix N enriching. And I think drawing attention to it and encouraging people to read this literature has had a positive effect on the gaming sphere that has encountered this wave.

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    3. The Broken Sword for example, was a sharp crystallisation of the ideas I had been toying with for my own homebrew. I still get chills when I think of his description of Jotunheim.

      It's a font of inspiration really.

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    4. In the proper proportions, sure.

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  12. Even Gary himself never intended for there to be any One True Way of playing D&D. His "Afterword" found in the back of the 1e DMG makes that clear.

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    1. I wouldn't say 'never'. Gygax was not consistent on this. See his rant in Dragon #16

      "Why can’t magic-users employ swords...On the surface this seems a small concession, but in actuality it would spoil the game!"

      "The “critical hit” or “double damage” on a “to hit” die roll of 20 is particularly offensive to the precepts of D&D as well."

      http://rollonward.blogspot.dk/2010/10/gary-gygax-and-house-rules.html

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    2. Yes, Gygax was inconsistent about this sort of thing, back then.

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    3. Fair statements. I am reminded of an early Dragon article in which he writes that he had heard of some university game club which had so heavily house-ruled D&D that he believed they were no longer actually playing D&D.

      Still, everyone is allowed to evolve their position on a subject and I think it's fair to say that, in the end, Gary never intended or expected everyone to adhere to some One True Path regarding the game.

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    4. He might have said that in the DMG but AD&D in general was built on removing the flexibility from the game so that convention games would all be the same. Exactly the same.

      Although I never met anyone who played it 100% as is.

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    5. Does anyone really give a shit what "Gary himself " thought or how he played? Once I have a copy of the game, it's mine do with as I will.

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    6. Yes, Old Gary was way cooler than Young Gary in that sense. His mellowing out in his old age is a big part of where the Gygax-worship really hit overdrive, and that's understandable. Because we do owe him everything, in the sense of his making D&D.

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    7. What "Gary himself" thought or how he played is relevant in the context of the Pundit's post. Because the people he's writing about want to make Gygax and his game into something that I don't believe he ever really intended. Hence my reference to the 1e DMG Afterword.

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    8. If they want 'pure Gygaxian' D&D and Gary can't DM for them, they should quit playing. Problem solved!

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  13. To me old time D&D was cargo cult D&D and lot's of bizarrely complicated subsytems that most people forgot. Cargo cult D&D was omivorous, not gonzo on purpose but amorphous with bits of other gammes and their supplements throown in. Most players didn't own a rulebook and even when mmany did they hardly owned them all or saw any reason to do so. Some of my players were not keen on D&D's spell system so I picked up runequest battlemagic whole cloth and added a Power stat to everyone's sheet no one complained or declared "this is not D&D".

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  14. To me old time D&D was cargo cult D&D and lot's of bizarrely complicated subsytems that most people forgot. Cargo cult D&D was omivorous, not gonzo on purpose but amorphous with bits of other gammes and their supplements throown in. Most players didn't own a rulebook and even when mmany did they hardly owned them all or saw any reason to do so. Some of my players were not keen on D&D's spell system so I picked up runequest battlemagic whole cloth and added a Power stat to everyone's sheet no one complained or declared "this is not D&D".

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    1. Well, any time I've seen anyone try to be "gonzo" on purpose it has been pretty limp stuff and transparently desperate. So gonzo only really works when it's not on purpose, much like movies that are so bad they become good.

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    2. I get what you're saying, but my DCC campaign respectfully disagrees with you about intentional Gonzo always being bad. So does most of the collected work of Hunter S. Thompson. And Transmetropolitan. And Adventure Time. And probably a couple of other things I could think so.

      But it's true, there is a lot of intentional Gonzo where you just feel like 'they're really trying too hard'.

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    3. Personally I think Thompson proves my point. I know you fancy him.

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    4. There'd be no such thing as Gonzo without Thompson. He invented it. If you think he's a fake or bad at it, than you pretty just don't like Gonzo, period.

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  15. Word that Pundit! Started in 1977 and my experience matches yours, although we liked Gygax until he got on his high horse once too often in Dragon magazine in '79. Original Gygax was pro-creativity, later Gygax was all about the dollar.

    In my internet ramblings I have never met an OSR-Taliban who started playing before 1985. Some were still in diapers when I started playing D&D. They speak on the past with the surety only one who was never there can have.

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