The Road to Victory

I think we can now unilaterally declare the OSR a success. Starter boxed sets are a thing once more, with both Pathfinder and D&D 5e having one. The 5e team not only reached out to OSR bloggers shortly after announcing 5e, but paid them to consult on 5e. In his design of 5e, Mearls openly embraced simplicity over completeness and the venerable Caves of Chaos were offered as a playtest testbed for the rules. OSR works have received the highest accolades of the industry and fandom, and we even have a few folks making a full-time living at this stuff. So I think we can safely say that, yes, from an outside perspective, the OSR has been shockingly successful.

Notice the caveat up there? From an outside perspective. That’s vital.

I’m writing this because I’m seeing other groups that appear similar to the OSR and have clearly been inspired by the OSR. Yes Pulp Renaissance folks (or whatever you’re calling yourselves), I am very much talking to you here. Because there’s one key aspect of the OSR that is vital to the success of any similar movement (and as I love me some Howard, Leiber, Wagner, etc. I’d really love to see you folks flourish).

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back—
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

From the OSR’s inception, before Maliszewski started Grognardia, before anyone was even saying anything like “Old School Renaissance,” the OSR was about one thing: having fun playing RPGs. Fun, of course, is a very particular thing; what floats my boat might sink yours. Each of us was pursuing our own individual fun. Sure, we did it in groups (RPGing is largely not a solo activity), but those groups had very different ideas of fun. Maliszewski had his very Appendix-N-driven world-building with a strong emphasis on dungeon exploration while Raggi pursued a horror vibe in a pseudo-historical setting. Some pursued Gygaxian Naturalism while others preferred a more metaphorical experience via delving into a Mythic Underworld. Games were opened up to the whole world (well, all of the world that could get on Google Hangouts) via the Flailsnails linked campaigns while others were carefully cultivated walled gardens, specifically designed for the enjoyment of a small few. Some wallowed in the excesses of Gygaxian descriptive writing while others embraced the simplicity of the One-page Dungeon. Thieves were excised from games, or modified, or the original design was strictly adhered to. Some embraced the entirety of Appendix N for inspiration, others picked just certain portions (Dying Earth stories or Swords & Sorcery) while others looked to video games or anime.

Within the very loose framework of the OSR, each of us pursued our own fun. Each of us pushed the boundaries of what the OSR was and then we’d get together to discuss what worked and what didn’t. We tore apart the old games to see how each individual piece worked, how they interacted with one another, and then tried new combinations to see what would happen. When something worked and was fun, we shared it with each other. And so our toolboxes of fun-building grew, our games became more fun to play, and we had great times.

The reason for the caveat above, about an outside perspective? That’s because whether or not the OSR succeeded or failed hung entirely on a single question: did you have more fun playing RPGs? The OSR succeeded and failed hundreds of thousands of times for every individual who gave it a whirl. Nothing else really mattered. If we were not having fun, things were not right and had to be changed. So we changed and explored and each of us found our individual fun.

So far, so good, at least as far as those of us finding this personal success were concerned. But enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s easy to be enthusiastic about something that’s fun! The more fun we had, and the more we talked about our fun and shared it, the more other folks wanted a piece of our action. That’s what created the success of the OSR as an influential movement in the larger sphere of RPGs. Not any attempt to strongly codify what the OSR is, or an internally coherent logical structure, or deeply penetrating philosophy. Jeff Rients set the tone early on; fuck pretentious bullshit. Is it fun? Then do more of that!

Were there fights with outside groups? Yep. Internal fights that grew rancorous? Of course. That happens, especially when you lose sight of how individualistic the whole thing was. It wasn’t all fun and games. But the core of everything vital was, in fact, fun and games. The success of the OSR, both for the individuals doing it as well as the movement as a whole, was entirely built on a foundation of playing games and having fun. Everything worthwhile and good grew from that.

UPDATE: a variation on this theme from Zak.