Thoughts on OSR
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Most outside the OSR give it some side-eye. Those inside ask "What the hell is water?" and keep playing. I've been borderline obsessed with have reservations... but there's something to it I'd like to explain.
Appeal of OSR:
- genuinely risky. No matter the stage of the game, if you want to progress at a reasonable rate, you have to get into, what has been for me, heart pounding situations.
- Tactical gameplay. In a (currently hiatus'ed) Nightwick Abbey megadungeon game, I have been thinking throughout the hiatus of the tactically best way to combat some regular old goblins. Because they're being annoying goblins, and it takes some genuine brain racking.
- Free-form. I don't know that I'm all about my old "immersive gaming" play after becoming so fond of straight up OSR games. But there's still a strong rules-lite feel to most OSR stuff I am fond of. Your tactical gameplay opens up into tactical infinity.
Things to like about OSR:
- genuinely good game design. Most every mechanic and procedure really encourages the core gameplay goals (gambling via exploration).
- Very open setting. You can play OSR in most settings (though not for every gameplay goal); obviously fantasy, but also science fiction settings, modern day. The setting is also open because you are dungeon delving: you can put all sorts of stuff in the dungeon that is non-constraining setting-wise. Crystal golems in sci-fi? Guess it's sci-fantasy and you just didn't find out yet.
- Easy to design/run/play. There's so much on OSR design on blogs, you can find an answer to most questions. You just need a rules cheat sheet & some common sense to run it. You need less than that to play, just an inventive streak in challenges.