5E and Pathfinder Players: What is your impression of OSR gaming?

[Mister Doctor]

Honestly, that toxicity is probably the first thing I think about too. There's a lot of vocal individuals in the OSR community with just the worst takes about TTRPGs and the culture around them. It's a play style and philosophy that will always appeal to some serious chuds. Other than that, I really don't think OSR games bring anything to the table that a wide array of indies don't also do without the cultural baggage. I get their value as a nostalgia machine but personally, the 'old school' they harken back to does not have a lot of things I find all that valuable.

[cailano]

This has been an enlightening topic! So far my main takeaways are:

1. Most respondents either prefer OSR or enjoy OSR and modern systems. That's great!
2. The next largest group just flat-out doesn't like OSR games because they don't like the rules or think the playstyle isn't to their taste. Fair enough.
3. A troubling number of respondents avoid OSR because there are some vocal jerks within the community. I must admit this is a little annoying because I'm willing to bet that whatever flavor of jerk these respondents want to avoid is even more prevalent in 5E circles, simply because the number of 5E players is much larger. Even if that isn't the case, labeling an entire group based on a few undesirables is non-nice. In truth, most OSR gamers don't like those guys, either.

Is anyone else coming away with different conclusions?

 

[cailano]

22 hours ago, Mister Doctor said:

Honestly, that toxicity is probably the first thing I think about too. There's a lot of vocal individuals in the OSR community with just the worst takes about TTRPGs and the culture around them. It's a play style and philosophy that will always appeal to some serious chuds.

This just isn't the case. Most OSR gamers just like simpler rules and higher danger levels than modern-system players. Many of them got started with the older editions of D&D and still prefer them.

Remember, before the 5E boom, the golden age of RPGs was back in the 1980s. That's when B/X and AD&D were the only versions of D&D there were. They appealed to the nerds, geeks, and weirdos, and being one of those back in the 80s could be pretty rough.

The 80s were also the height of the Satanic Panic. I remember well-meaning relatives telling my mom she should put me in counseling to make sure I didn't either turn into a Satanist or commit suicide (I'm not sure why those were the only two options.) My point is, we were on the wrong end of enough ignorance and stereotypes that most of us have no interest in being the same kind of blockhead that slapped those labels on us.

I won't get into the details of how we got the vocal jerks in OSR because it has to do with real-world politics, and that is (wisely) something we're not supposed to talk about on this site. All I'll say is that the vast majority of OSR players I've gamed with are open-minded and non-judgemental and want to relax and enjoy the game with fellow enthusiasts.
 

[Mister Doctor]

I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't get it. I primarily play PF2e and a lot of 5e players like to try to paint us as always butting in to their spaces and chiming in with 'Pathfinder is better' whenever they complain about something in 5e. Other than that though, OSR games still fail to engage me on a mechanical level. If I want something rules-lite I'm still more likely to reach for an indie than an OSR game on the grounds that they are more likely to be mechanically interesting to me and have a stronger core concept.

[cailano]

5 hours ago, Mister Doctor said:

I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't get it. I primarily play PF2e and a lot of 5e players like to try to paint us as always butting in to their spaces and chiming in with 'Pathfinder is better' whenever they complain about something in 5e. Other than that though, OSR games still fail to engage me on a mechanical level. If I want something rules-lite I'm still more likely to reach for an indie than an OSR game on the grounds that they are more likely to be mechanically interesting to me and have a stronger core concept.

Which begs the question of "what is OSR," although I'd argue it's outside the scope of this thread.

But there are some great indie games out there right now, I agree. I have a big collection of them.

[Malkavian Grin]

I'll chime in again just to say: Some of the reason I like OSR games is the freedom they offer. You are not hemmed in with possible options you can take/characters you can be. Yes, it has rules, and there are some guidelines (even ones I don't agree with, like race as class), but for the most part you are free to just try stuff. Not so in rules-heavy games such as D&D and Pathfinder and other modern games. There are specific actions you can take and anything else you try is likely to outright fail (often with bad consequences).

I will say, however, that I am greatly enjoying a modern system that shares very little with what we're discussing here, and that is the Genesys system. It's the one with all the funky dice that have no numbers. You've seen in that one Star Wars RPG as well as being the system beneath Twilight Imperium (the one that references that war game setting). I don't know what character creation is like (we're using pre-gens) but the system itself has that "rulings not rules" feel to it because the GM is the final arbiter on what a roll means. It leans into the idea of "Yes, and" and "No, but" which I feel enriches a system greatly no matter what the game is about. There's definitely some merit to modern gaming!

[Excior]

26 minutes ago, Malkavian Grin said:

I'll chime in again just to say: Some of the reason I like OSR games is the freedom they offer. You are not hemmed in with possible options you can take/characters you can be. Yes, it has rules, and there are some guidelines (even ones I don't agree with, like race as class), but for the most part you are free to just try stuff. Not so in rules-heavy games such as D&D and Pathfinder and other modern games. There are specific actions you can take and anything else you try is likely to outright fail (often with bad consequences).

I will say, however, that I am greatly enjoying a modern system that shares very little with what we're discussing here, and that is the Genesys system. It's the one with all the funky dice that have no numbers. You've seen in that one Star Wars RPG as well as being the system beneath Twilight Imperium (the one that references that war game setting). I don't know what character creation is like (we're using pre-gens) but the system itself has that "rulings not rules" feel to it because the GM is the final arbiter on what a roll means. It leans into the idea of "Yes, and" and "No, but" which I feel enriches a system greatly no matter what the game is about. There's definitely some merit to modern gaming!

that last part of your post is what I like about FATE

[cailano]

This makes me want to start a whole new thread about indie games!

[Lord Foul]

On 10/22/2023 at 7:41 PM, cailano said:

There is, unfortunately, some drek within the OSR community but lately I've seen a lot of push back against them and towards more inclusivity within the player base. Turns out that no one play style actually wants a bunch of jerks at the table.

This statement applies to just about every community out there, regardless of its individual proclivity. I've more recently been a part of another online RPG community, and, if anything, I'd have to say the toxicity there was a vocal minority continually expressing anti-D&D sentiments (all versions).

Sadly, it's just people. Some people are dickwads, and the interwebz open us up to them. Noone has yet managed to develop an effective anti-dickwad filter.

Now there's a challenge for the administrators!

 

[Lord Foul]

19 hours ago, cailano said:

I remember well-meaning relatives telling my mom she should put me in counseling to make sure I didn't either turn into a Satanist or else commit suicide (I'm not sure why those were the only two options.)

So... what might we deduce from the fact that you are still with us? 😉

[cailano]

11 minutes ago, Lord Foul said:

So... what might we deduce from the fact that you are still with us? 😉

Haha, thankfully, it's just that some of my relatives were a bit gullible back in the day.

... or so I would have you believe.

[Stygian]

2E AD&D was my first love, and I'll always have a soft spot for it. But I really don't have much desire to pursue OSR heartbreakers. I've seen very few that handle the mechanics in a similar way, while still letting you more or less craft any character concept you can think of. Most OSR I've run into sacrifice character customization for tighter, streamlined rulesets. Give me kits, give me specialty priests. Give me race-specific fighting styles and fluff. That's what I come to the table for. I had the full set of spell compendiums, all the Complete Guides, the Pantheon books. Good stuff.

5e is actually the closest thing I've seen, but it still doesn't give the same bang for your buck in terms of freedom, and many of the interesting non-combat options no longer exist. I'm still so-so on PF2e and its need to catalog everything. A specific feat to let me use Performance to impress people instead of Diplomacy? Isn't that sort of.. half the point of performance?

[Actana]

To be honest, I don't think of OSR games at all. They're not for me, and are often actively hostile to what I want from my games. So I just let them be.

[leons1701]

OSR games may well be more flexible in play, there is no denying that. But most gain that flexibility at the cost of any flexibility in character creation. No, your fighter can't track the enemy, only rangers can do that and I don't care if he grew up in the woods. For that matter, a cleric of the god of hunting in most OSR games would have exactly zero hunting skills because clerics don't get those. Your class defines an exact set of skills you can have, these and no other. Read a weird unknown language without using magic? Sorry Gandalf, that's the rogues job just because the Grey Mouser was a failed wizard's apprentice.

Even when race isn't a class, it's almost always restricted in what classes a given race can be. You MUST follow the stereotype of your race, them's the rules. Half orc paladin? Nope. Dwarf monk? Don't be absurd.

[cailano]

3 hours ago, leons1701 said:

OSR games may well be more flexible in play, there is no denying that. But most gain that flexibility at the cost of any flexibility in character creation. No, your fighter can't track the enemy, only rangers can do that and I don't care if he grew up in the woods. For that matter, a cleric of the god of hunting in most OSR games would have exactly zero hunting skills because clerics don't get those. Your class defines an exact set of skills you can have, these and no other. Read a weird unknown language without using magic? Sorry Gandalf, that's the rogues job just because the Grey Mouser was a failed wizard's apprentice.

Even when race isn't a class, it's almost always restricted in what classes a given race can be. You MUST follow the stereotype of your race, them's the rules. Half orc paladin? Nope. Dwarf monk? Don't be absurd.

Most OSR Systems don't include formal skills (a pro in my book) so your woods-trained fighter can track if the GM allows it.

All the stuff about races is valid in a lot of systems. One of the things I like about Castles and Crusades is that they delivered an AD&D system that modernized all that, which was badly needed. It might be my favorite flavor of D&D if you consider the system on its own (their setting books and modules kind of suck, unfortunately.)