Discussion:
OSRIC 3.0 announced
(too old to reply)
Kyonshi
2024-05-16 11:34:45 UTC
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Source:
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=310619&sid=bc9df66ac8e684285312387ec9ff9e5d#p310619



Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Spalls Hurgenson
2024-05-16 15:34:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=310619&sid=bc9df66ac8e684285312387ec9ff9e5d#p310619
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
books.

But at least OSRIC uses descending AC. OSE allows the heretical idea
that AC goes UP as it gets better. The developers ought to be burned
at the stake. ;-)





* which I am.**















** okay, technically I'm not, since I don't have an active group. But
if I did, it would play old-school rules. ;-P
Ubiquitous
2024-05-23 08:03:02 UTC
Permalink
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
books.
Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!

The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.

--
Let's go Brandon!
Kyonshi
2024-05-23 10:26:50 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ubiquitous
The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
Too much throwing at the wall with that one?
Ubiquitous
2024-05-23 12:04:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kyonshi
The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
Too much throwing at the wall with that one?
No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great
condition.

--
Let's go Brandon!
Spalls Hurgenson
2024-05-23 14:58:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Kyonshi
The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
Too much throwing at the wall with that one?
No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great
condition.
My 1st Ed DMG (revised edition with the keymaster, not the original
with the demon) is held together with aging beige masking tape. Being
carried around in the 'game bag' (backpack) from session to session
took its toll on it. Fortuantely, I was able to find a copy in much
better condition that I can display on the shelf.

Similarly, my 2nd Edition rulebooks are held together with black duck
tape (complete with hand-written titles on the spine). I have
'display' copies for those too. The battered working copies stay in
the bag, always ready for the next session ;-)

Indestructible, those books were not. But they definitely withstood a
lot of abuse over the years.

The most pristine hardbound rulebook is 4th Edition. I can't imagine
why that may be. ;-P
lkh
2024-05-24 07:22:49 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Kyonshi
The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
Too much throwing at the wall with that one?
No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great
condition.
I seem to remember having listned to an interview with Gary Gygax, where he claimed
asking for "school book binding" for the three original books was a deliberate
choice. He disapproved the decision to go to regular case binding for the later
orange spine books.

So if your three core books still hold up nicely (just like mine), all praise
has to got to Gary :)

~lkh
Post by Ubiquitous
--
Let's go Brandon!
--
https://social.sdfeu.org/@lkh
IRC: lkh on Libera.chat and others
XMPP: ***@jabber.sdf.org
Ubiquitous
2024-06-12 14:03:13 UTC
Permalink
Post by lkh
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Kyonshi
The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
Too much throwing at the wall with that one?
No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great
condition.
I seem to remember having listned to an interview with Gary Gygax, where he
claimed asking for "school book binding" for the three original books was a
deliberate choice. He disapproved the decision to go to regular case binding
for the later orange spine books.
Interesting! I did not know that!
Post by lkh
So if your three core books still hold up nicely (just like mine), all
praise has to got to Gary :)
Praise Gygax!

--
Let's go Brandon!
Justisaur
2024-05-23 16:22:44 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
books.
Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!
The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.
Yet another reason not to use UA.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
Spalls Hurgenson
2024-05-24 14:10:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Justisaur
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
books.
Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!
The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.
Yet another reason not to use UA.
Even as an uncouth and crass young(er) player at the time, I wasn't
fond of Unearthed Arcana. It wasn't that a lot of the ideas didn't
appeal to me, but they all felt poorly integrated with the greater
game. They were good ideas tossed into the pot without consideration
for how they affected the overall game balance and style. These days
I'd accuse the developers of 'kitchen-sinking'* the game; throwing in
new ideas without a real understanding of its effects, just to say
that they've added something new.

Another 130 pages of Gygax's dense prose wasn't a welcome prospect
either. Especially since his style of play started to feel extremely
dated compared with newer games.

Still, a good half of the manual was advice and clarifications of
existing rules; essentially, a compilation of answers people had been
asking TSR for ten years. This wasn't entirely unwelcome, even if I
didn't always agree with the answers (again, Gygax and I didn't really
seem to want to play the same type of game), and if figuring out what
was intended required dredging through acres of Gygaxian prose printed
in tiny print and way too many charts.

It also didn't help that Unearthed Arcana's status was so uncertain.
Was it an official expansion to the rules, or was it optional bits the
DM could pick-and-chose from? And that it came out just a few years
before the 2nd Edition revision didn't help either.

I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out. I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
Folio". ;-)













* I'm gonna make this phrase happen, just you watch.
Kyonshi
2024-05-25 08:25:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Post by Justisaur
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
books.
Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!
The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.
Yet another reason not to use UA.
Even as an uncouth and crass young(er) player at the time, I wasn't
fond of Unearthed Arcana. It wasn't that a lot of the ideas didn't
appeal to me, but they all felt poorly integrated with the greater
game. They were good ideas tossed into the pot without consideration
for how they affected the overall game balance and style. These days
I'd accuse the developers of 'kitchen-sinking'* the game; throwing in
new ideas without a real understanding of its effects, just to say
that they've added something new.
Another 130 pages of Gygax's dense prose wasn't a welcome prospect
either. Especially since his style of play started to feel extremely
dated compared with newer games.
Still, a good half of the manual was advice and clarifications of
existing rules; essentially, a compilation of answers people had been
asking TSR for ten years. This wasn't entirely unwelcome, even if I
didn't always agree with the answers (again, Gygax and I didn't really
seem to want to play the same type of game), and if figuring out what
was intended required dredging through acres of Gygaxian prose printed
in tiny print and way too many charts.
It also didn't help that Unearthed Arcana's status was so uncertain.
Was it an official expansion to the rules, or was it optional bits the
DM could pick-and-chose from? And that it came out just a few years
before the 2nd Edition revision didn't help either.
I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out. I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
Folio". ;-)
* I'm gonna make this phrase happen, just you watch.
Oh come on, the Fiend Folio is amazing. I just regret they didn't put
out anything with the later monsters from White Dwarf.
Justisaur
2024-05-28 15:59:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kyonshi
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out.
A few things I liked, a lot I liked the idea of, but didn't work out in
play, and a lot of stuff that was obviously bad. The new spells seemed
to be almost universally loved, which was at least a third of the book.
Post by Kyonshi
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
Folio". ;-)
I've got a lot more.
Post by Kyonshi
Oh come on, the Fiend Folio is amazing. I just regret they didn't put
out anything with the later monsters from White Dwarf.
/agree with both that.

Fiend Folio is very hit and miss though, the hits are amazing, the
misses are miserable. To be fair, the monster manual had a lot of
miserable misses too, like wind walkers.

As it's a DM resource book it's a lot easier to use what I want and not
what I don't than a mostly player facing book like UA. I played a lot
of AD&D at the time being a kid & teen eventually, and the additional
monsters were a godsend to mix it up a bit.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
Ubiquitous
2024-06-12 14:10:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Justisaur
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out.
A few things I liked, a lot I liked the idea of, but didn't work out in
play, and a lot of stuff that was obviously bad. The new spells seemed
to be almost universally loved, which was at least a third of the book.
Lifted from Dragon Magainze and several modeules.

--
Let's go Brandon!
Kyonshi
2024-06-15 22:12:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Justisaur
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out.
A few things I liked, a lot I liked the idea of, but didn't work out in
play, and a lot of stuff that was obviously bad. The new spells seemed
to be almost universally loved, which was at least a third of the book.
Lifted from Dragon Magainze and several modeules.
basically a random grab bag of ideas, and it would have worked were it
not for these meddling...
no wait, it would have worked if it hadn't had Gygax' name behind it to
make it into Word of God from above

Ubiquitous
2024-06-12 14:08:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kyonshi
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
particularly well thought out. I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
Folio". ;-)
Oh come on, the Fiend Folio is amazing. I just regret they didn't put
out anything with the later monsters from White Dwarf.
The original Fiend Folio was a mixed bag for me. The monsters were either
awesome or aweful.

--
Let's go Brandon!
Ubiquitous
2024-06-12 14:07:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Post by Justisaur
Post by Ubiquitous
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
books.
Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!
The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.
Yet another reason not to use UA.
Even as an uncouth and crass young(er) player at the time, I wasn't
fond of Unearthed Arcana. It wasn't that a lot of the ideas didn't
appeal to me, but they all felt poorly integrated with the greater
game. They were good ideas tossed into the pot without consideration
for how they affected the overall game balance and style. These days
I'd accuse the developers of 'kitchen-sinking'* the game; throwing in
new ideas without a real understanding of its effects, just to say
that they've added something new.
If memory serves, a lot of the ideas came from Dragon Magazine and were
meant to be a mix of errtta, clarifications, and new material. I especially
appreciated the boost to demi-human level limits.
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
* I'm gonna make this phrase happen, just you watch.
I thought it already was, or already has a phrase.

--
Let's go Brandon!
Justisaur
2024-05-16 16:11:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=310619&sid=bc9df66ac8e684285312387ec9ff9e5d#p310619
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Sounds good after reading the post there. I'm all for a easier to
understand version of 1e, even if I prefer different interpretations of
some of the rules.

I hope they remove or move the section on NPCs ability scores as that
caused problems for both me and others allowing/using OSRIC, as it
wasn't clear that wasn't for characters that were NPCs.

What I'd really like to see is a real basic version of 5e, not the WotC
version that is almost exactly the same, but has fewer races and
classes. The whole system is just so tied up together in knots it's
very hard to extricate complexities with it. It really needs a
different basic system like Basic vs. AD&D had.


___________________________

Mythmere:
"
1) Simply maintaining OSRIC under the OGL is possible at this time, but
in the long run I think it's a bit of a risk. WotC can probably cut off
access to new users of the OGL at any time by "withdrawing the open
offer". I don't think I'm giving WotC a roadmap here; they almost
certainly are aware of this approach to the license. They wanted to do
more than that to kill it quickly, but there's a much more reliable way
to poison it over time, which is simply to withdraw the offer to "sign
on" to the OGL. But after the massive backlash to their attempt to kill
the license at one blow, they will have to wait a while before
mentioning the OGL again. This potential future withdrawal of the offer
would create a problem for anyone new who wanted to publish something
for OSRIC, so it behooves us to move to a different license now, before
the axe eventually comes down.

2) The ORC license has some problems with easy usability. I won't go
into those because it's complicated and also because there's discussion
about it in lots of other places. The AELF License, since it works in
the same way as the OGL, is familiar enough that it can be adopted
relatively easily by anyone familiar with the OGL.

3) OSRIC 3.0 is intended to be completely backward-compatible with OSRIC
2.0, and it shouldn't require any "new versions" of adventures that have
been published in the past. There might turn out to be minor glitches in
terms of backward compatibility, but those will be the exception.

4) The reasons for coming out with a new version:

a) First, the license, as mentioned above.

b) Secondly, it's to meet the needs of a younger batch of gamers in a
context where the PDFs of the original books are available from WotC
(which wasn't the case when we originally published OSRIC 2.0). This
means several different avenues of approach.

--- The writing style will use bullet points and other visual call-outs
to avoid the "wall of text" effect. Even those of us raised in
pre-internet days are starting to find the bullet-point arrangement
preferable to a long block that doesn't visually separate and organize
the more important elements of the text.

---We're going to include a VTT-friendly method of scale since so many
people now game online.

---We're going to try to make this version what EOTB calls a "teaching
edition," meaning lots of guidance for playing the game. The "how to
play" information is in the original books to a degree, but it can be
presented at the forefront and that's what anyone new to the whole OSR
needs. Also, AD&D is simply more complex than other OSR games like B/X,
so it needs to be presented in a step-by-step format that draws the
learner into the process.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
Spalls Hurgenson
2024-05-17 20:37:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Justisaur
Post by Kyonshi
https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=310619&sid=bc9df66ac8e684285312387ec9ff9e5d#p310619
Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
very similar approach.
Sounds good after reading the post there. I'm all for a easier to
understand version of 1e, even if I prefer different interpretations of
some of the rules.
I hope they remove or move the section on NPCs ability scores as that
caused problems for both me and others allowing/using OSRIC, as it
wasn't clear that wasn't for characters that were NPCs.
What I'd really like to see is a real basic version of 5e, not the WotC
version that is almost exactly the same, but has fewer races and
classes. The whole system is just so tied up together in knots it's
very hard to extricate complexities with it. It really needs a
different basic system like Basic vs. AD&D had.
By the time the BECMI system was fully developed, it was almost as
complex as its AD&D counterpart.

What set Basic apart wasn't so much its rules system, but how it
introduced the game system to you bit by bit. The Moldavay - and
especially the Mentzer books - were just better written tomes. Had
they done the AD&D rules, I think TSR could have skipped the entire
AD&D/Basic division.
Justisaur
2024-05-21 13:26:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
By the time the BECMI system was fully developed, it was almost as
complex as its AD&D counterpart.
What set Basic apart wasn't so much its rules system, but how it
introduced the game system to you bit by bit. The Moldavay - and
especially the Mentzer books - were just better written tomes. Had
they done the AD&D rules, I think TSR could have skipped the entire
AD&D/Basic division.
True, Mentzer was amazing for the intro in the basic set. Also while
somewhat of a pain once you were familiar that they were broken up into
levels and introduced new mechanics in higher level books helped a lot.
At least the last one also had the Rules Cyclopedia eventually that put
all the rules in one book.
--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'
Spalls Hurgenson
2024-05-21 15:50:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Justisaur
Post by Spalls Hurgenson
By the time the BECMI system was fully developed, it was almost as
complex as its AD&D counterpart.
What set Basic apart wasn't so much its rules system, but how it
introduced the game system to you bit by bit. The Moldavay - and
especially the Mentzer books - were just better written tomes. Had
they done the AD&D rules, I think TSR could have skipped the entire
AD&D/Basic division.
True, Mentzer was amazing for the intro in the basic set. Also while
somewhat of a pain once you were familiar that they were broken up into
levels and introduced new mechanics in higher level books helped a lot.
At least the last one also had the Rules Cyclopedia eventually that put
all the rules in one book.
Although at a cost to readability and its learning curve.

Don't get me wrong; I loved the "Rules Cyclopedia", but that's because
- by the time it came out - I was well familiar with the BECMI system
and having all the rules (and much of the setting) all in one handy,
convenient tome was incredibly useful. No more rooting through
multiple box-sets looking for a specific spell or monster!

But the individual books - especially, as you noted, the BASIC and
EXPERT systems - were designed to kickstart new players into the game.
Everything -from the writing to the pacing to the fact that the books
themselves were three-ring hole-punched- made it seem like the game
was meant to be taken up piece by piece.

Compare this too AD&D, where three huge, hardback tomes were dumped on
you all at once... Gygax's game was intimidating in comparison.

BECMI really started getting weird at higher levels, though. The
Immortal rules were completely unsatisfying, and even Master felt odd.
Our group rarely played BECMI, but when we did we very rarely played
anything that required more than the Expert set (past level 14). D&D
(of any variety) starts to lose its focus once players levels reach
two digits...
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