I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about OSR games a lot lately. It’s not that not that I have some sort of new found dislike for Pathfinder or any other game. It’s just that I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic and a little annoyed. I keep seeing too much crap about character optimization, splitting hairs on the wording of a particular rule or using knowledge of the rules more than creativity and imagination. I’m tired of play being bogged down by looking up the specific wording in the rule book or referencing some bit of minutia. I’m weary of overly complex rules that really don’t need to need to even exist. I don’t need a rule that says a dead character can take no actions.
I yearn for the days when monsters were met with a little wonder. When what you could do is based more on the player’s imagination rather than knowledge of the rules. Hell, try anything. Have fun and get killed every now and then. Or hell, maybe I’m just getting old and yearn for those good old days. Or maybe get back a little innocence that was lost in the edition wars.
But on to present day and brass tacks. I’ve been looking at a bunch of OSR and similar stuff: Labyrinth Lords, Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Castles & Crusades and OSRIC. Hell, I even looked at GORE, Tunnels & Trolls and OpenQuest. Any more I don’t drop any bucks on a game without thoroughly thinking it over. It’s the freaking economy but this isn’t about me whining. I’ll admit that I’m not an Old School purist. There’s a lot of things from the old games that I didn’t I like and thought were just plain stupid. But I’m not going to bad mouth anything. I’m looking a game that hits my sweet spot.
I think I may have found what I’m looking for. I got my copies of Castle & Crusades on the way. When it gets here and I have a good chance to read over it, I’ll let you all know my thoughts. But I have a good feeling about this.
7 Responses to “Thinking about Old School Games”
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Chuck on 
Philo Pharynx on 
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts. I’m looking into getting C&C myself for when Dragon Age doesn’t hit that sweet spot for me.
I’m kind of in the same boat as you.
Every once in a while I get that “good old days” feeling and want to play something different. When that happens I A.) run a simplified Pathfinder or Essentials game, B.) play Basic Fantasy or Swords & Wizardry, or C.) use choices A or B to run a game for my daughter or other “kids” (people under 25 who don’t normally play RPGs).
Of course I rarely ever get to play anymore so most of the time I’m just happy to have a game to run.
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Of course I am also a big 2e fan and I do try to get a 2e game in when I can. It is actually more complicated, it seems, than running 3e/PfRPG or 4e, and I hate THAC0, but there is still something about the game that I like.
Thanks for the comments, guys. We’ll see what the group says. Keep your fingers crossed. And yes I do have a kind of neat idea for a campaign but more about that later. ;)
Recently I found Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits by Precis Games, I guess an Ennie Award winner of some sort a few years ago? Anyways, it’s simple, a little different, but captured that old school feel I was looking for; simple character creation, random monsters, random traps, and random treasure with a random dungeon creator for solo play. It also has those little bonuses/penalties tucked into the rules to give it a little fun and intricacy.
Did you look at “dragon warrior”. It is old school from those days (unchanged rules), but in a new edition. And the best game world ever.
That was another one I looked at too just forgot to mention it. It was OK but not exactly what I was looking for. And of course Dungeonslayers which I still love but wanted a little more crunch in the game.