Knights & Knaves Alehouse

It reminds me uncomfortably of my own initial reaction to the OSRIC project. Sometimes emotion has its quite unreasonable way! In that case, I can't even say why; I would have thought myself predisposed to welcome the initiative.

I would suggest taking such concerns in stride and trusting that anyone whose opinion is of practical significance will in the end judge the tree by its fruits.

Until there are fruits to judge, debating the merits seems to me an empty exercise.

Geoffrey wrote:

hellbender wrote:The idea is to support this era of gaming, whether your game was made in 1974 or 2008, as long as it has an older feel. People need to be gaming now and enjoying that game.

Though the Encounter Critical RPG was made in 2004, it feels like it was made in 1979.

This right here is completely subjective, you may say it feels and plays this way but others may not and it is this sort labeling that causes problems because it is like trying to define what is "Old School" which every board and forum has had thread after thread about this subject.

As a side question is this group only about promoting "Old School" OD&D, AD&D, B/X D&D, etc. or would it also cover games such as T&T, The Fantasy Trip, Runequest, Traveller, etc?

thedungeondelver wrote: Then why the hell this push to politicize the whole thing and have "leaders" and "committees"?

Hey, here's a radical notion: people will play what they will play. The only advocacy group for '74 edition D&D or AD&D is you (the collective "you", not "you" personally) and your group playing it. Play at a comic shop, play at a con, sit in on other games and when it's over if you like the people, invite them to yours.

Doesn't take a legislative branch to figure this out.

Don't take this wrong, but the idea isn't to form a political situation, I haven't heard anyone on the list striving to be the leader or wanting to run the organization. And really, if you aren't interested that is certainly your perogative. I would still suggest allowing a link to your website as it is a valuable resource.

All we are trying to do is to get people online or offline to play "oldschool" games if they want to and try to assist them in finding resources on and off the web to help them out. There is no elite and there is certainly no plan to leave anyone out that wants to be a part of the group. You have people donating their time, resources and finances to help promote a classical style of gaming. There isn't a catch.

For what it's worth, I'm an AD&Der of 27 years who now plays 3.5 out of desperation (it's literally the only game in town, currently, at least until next Tuesday when things will get even worse . I would absolutely love an alternative.

I am fairly friendly with the owner (an O/AD&Der since the '70s) of our state's (Delaware) only full-service FLGS , and would be willing to try to organize events there on behalf of "the group" if that phase should ever come to pass. They already have some OSRIC on their shelves, and would almost certainly be open to anything which brings new customers through the doors. Right now, they are holding their noses while taking preorders for 4th edition, because that's what will keep them afloat.

I'm not a DM, but I have organizational skills out the wazoo, enough free time, and I work for free .

To address the question of motivation: It seems to me the explanation for the enthusiasm of some here (aside from genuine love for old school gaming forms) is not political. It's that the participants are motivated by the desire to write and/or publish new old school products, which might (gasp!) make them some money... It does feel a bit like tilting at windmills, but none of us would be here if we weren't a little bit like Don Quixote.

Alright, let me try describing my misgivings another way. Hopefully, this will be plainer than my normal, admittedly sarcastic, mode of expression.

I am suspicious of any group, not just the one under current discussion, that would even attempt to codify anything concerning our "old school" style of play. As has already been conceded, there is no one style of "old school" play.

Mostly, my suspicion centers around when such an organization will get around to the establishment of standards. Can you see where I'm going here? Who decides what these standards will be? Standards can either be too exclusive or too inclusive. Who decides what DMs and what games get support? Let's exclude, for now, the possibly obvious inclusions of D&D from 1974 to 1981 (if we can't agree on that, then we're in worse shape than I thought ) Let's say I want to run a Runequest 3rd edition game? Does that get the support of the organization? How about Rolemaster 2nd edition? D&D 3.x is out of print (or soon will be). Vampire: The Masquerade and AD&D 2e were released about the same time, IIRC. Does one make the cut, but not the other? An obvious choice you say, but how? How do you include one w/o the other w/o some codified standard? Some of these choices are obvious, while others may not be, especially as time moves forward.

Now, let's say that members of this Old School Gaming Support Group decide to author their own re-imagining of D&D? Will DMs who still want to use OD&D, AD&D, BFRPG, GORE, LL or OSRIC still be eligible for support? What about GMs who prefer RQ 2nd edition, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip, or Tunnels & Trolls?

Personally, I'd like to see some of these excluded while others are included. How do you do this without a standard? OTOH, I'd never set myself up as an arbiter to formally tell others whether their game is "old school enough", nor would I accept anyone else who would.

I suppose I could offer to join and help to establish such an organization. In this way, I could hope to keep everything transparent to the rest of the "old school" world and try to keep The Founders honest. So, what do you say, would this new association/organization/whatever accept a Ralph Nader into its midst? It's not a rhetorical question, because I'm considering drinking the Kool Aid, if only to be the kings' jester and not allow them to think that they could even attempt to start including Vampire: The Masquerade Storytellers or exclude The Fantasy Trip GMs. See, there are those pesky standards already creeping in. What do ya say?

If I have anything to say about it, the organization will deal with Gygaxian D&D and directly compatible games only.

So T&T, The Fantasy Trip, and Traveller aren't old school?

Stonegiant wrote:So T&T, The Fantasy Trip, and Traveller aren't old school?

Don't give a poop (are we allowed to swear here? ). "Old school" isn't my concern. D&D is.

JimLotFP wrote:

Stonegiant wrote:So T&T, The Fantasy Trip, and Traveller aren't old school?

Don't give a poop (are we allowed to swear here? ). "Old school" isn't my concern. D&D is.

I ain't trying to give anyone shit here my intention is to see whether this organization is in line with my concerns or whether its another "There aren't any other games but D&D" group, which if it is just D&D well it definitely ain't for me, cuz ya'll see us bumpkins in the south here we like to mix our gaming up a bit, makes us feel all cozmipolitan See my concern is old school gaming (fantasy, sci-fi, western, etc.) and not just D&D. I love Gygaxian gaming and D&D through and through but TSR was the first but not the only ones out there. Later Ya'll.

I don't understand why some folks think that our efforts to organize a way of promoting "old-School" gaming is akin to some kind of conspiracy movement?

I do understand the typical suspicion that many people have for any kind of organizations. Many of them in our western culture or quite corrupt. But, you know, every now and then, good people can gather together, organize and do something good.

And I understand that everyone would want this group to actively support their personal, favorite rpg system - and in doing so, not exclude anyone else (sounds kinda impossible to me).

I can also understand that some people might be suspicious of "publishers" being involved as well. My sincerest thanks go out to the five people who have actually purchased one of our products that we decided to charge for (they'd kick us off YGN.com if we gave everything away free). Those five sales have brought in a whopping $4.40 in revenue. Of course, that doesn't even begin to cover the cost of art. What I'm saying is, even though I do publish stuff for LL and OSRIC, it's so that the games will continue to expand and flourish and because somebody out there might actually find some of it useful.

I hear folks saying they want "quality" material for our retro clone games. IS this a code for "just the original guys" who did stuff for Gary back in the 1980's? I've put out the offer for folks to publish their material through BHP and only a tiny handful have. The truth is, I have nearly as many known, published authors asking to publish there stuff through BHP as I do regular old gamers. I think it is cool that over the next few months both kinds will have stuff published through BHP. That is part of what we want, isn't it? We already have a company that make professional material for OSRIC (ERP - and their stuff is great too!). Why would anybody be afraid a short, fat, bald preacher in IL who's trying to help support the games we love?

And why do people keep using profanity in this thread? You'd think we were really talking about taxes, endless wars of occupation or something really important.

*Goes back to his Area 51 work room*

Why is a "standard," a problem? K&K has a standard; DragonQuest Rules List has a much narrower one; Dragonsfoot has a broader one. A community formed for a purpose must define that purpose.

If it turns out not to suit you, there's no compulsion to make it part of your life. We're talking about a free association of hobbyists, not a government!

Heck, the group already in formation might not suit me -- one of those most excited about some such association. It's not as if there's room for only one!

If there are "joiners" who want to get together with the exclusive goal of promoting one particular game (or all games, or any set in between), nobody can stop them. Who would want to?

JimLotFP wrote:Don't give a poop (are we allowed to swear here? ). "Old school" isn't my concern. D&D is.

Yes, you can swear. I suppose there'd be a limit of acceptability somewhere, but it would be fairly high.

I'd really like my concerns about standards addressed. As the OP, I think I'm entitled.

Forget conspiracy, I'm not interested. My interest is a small group, looking for support from a larger group, to promote only what the small group wants supported, and nothing else. I'm not saying this is what you guys intend to do, I'm pointing out the possibility that this is what it could become.

It sounds more like a business model than a "loose association of like-minded individuals".

I ask that someone in the know, address my concerns about standards.

danke!

It may appear that reactions here are overstated, and I'd like quickly to explain to the defenders of this idea (which I am, to the extent that it's Badger's minimalist guerrilla-marketing approach) why there's a concern.

Although I can't speak for those who have the questions, here's the reason I have my concerns:

One organization, to the extent it succeeds, occupies the space and can push out other organizations. Once the standards of the first successful organization become set, newcomers with a different approach won't have the chance to do the same thing. Excitement and volunteers won't be there any more, and many of the joiners in the first organization, even if they'd marginally prefer the second organization, won't be available.

So, the questions about standards (and questions about leadership fold into that, since centralized groups are typically more rigid than dispersed groups) are relevant to how much the organization would potentially box out.

Example: An OD&D guy. The organization has moved away from supporting OD&D in favor of "12e: The Snoozing." The OD&D guy might want to start a new organization, but it's actually more difficult for him to do so than it would have been if he's the first.

So, details about the first organization as it forms are not trollish or silly: they're quite relevant. I realize that supporters of this organization probably aren't thinking of it in these terms, and I think the questioners are.

Stonegiant wrote:See my concern is old school gaming (fantasy, sci-fi, western, etc.) and not just D&D. I love Gygaxian gaming and D&D through and through but TSR was the first but not the only ones out there. Later Ya'll.

I agree with this. Limiting the scope to only D&D (and compatible games) not only excludes a lot of other old-school goodness, but also might be shooting yourself in the foot. It seems to me that within a gaming organization there would be room for all these things. But, I guess it depends on your goals.