A bunch of bloggers and podcasters have decided to dedicate October to the OSR. I'm not sure who started the idea, but I thought I'd play along. Some of that group seems that we should spend this month only promoting OSR game products. I reject that notion. I feel that any positive presentation of the OSR that serves to get people interested in the older form of play is a good thing.
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Another popular notion that I reject is that the OSR is exclusive to 20th Century editions of D&D and the retro-clones. This seems silly and limiting to me. In A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming [PDF], Matt Finch lays out the four cornerstones of OSR play:
- Rulings, not Rules
- Player Skill, not Character Abilities
- Heroic, not Superhero
- Forget "Game Balance"
I agree with all of those points (to a degree). The important thing here is that all of these points refer to a style of play and not a particular rules set. While modern rules will often get in the way of these goals, D&D wasn't the only game in the 1970's to rely on this playstyle.
Tunnels & Trolls came out in 1975 and should easily be considered an OSR game. It doesn't need a retro-clone because they already sell the old versions for a song!
Want to play in the OSR style in space? Sure there's White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying but that's just the D&D rules with spacesuits. Why not just play classic Traveller or its retro-clone?
There is more to the OSR than just D&D.
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